Adam Ingram: I am only too happy to pass on those warm thoughts from my hon. Friend. He raises an important point about links between the local community and the newly formed regiment, and the need to ensure that those links have the same strength and depth as links with the former regiments. He asked whether I would support that, and I would. He asked whether I would support the granting of the freedom of the city to the new regiment. The answer is yes. Iam conscious of the fact that HMS York, which has done such wonderful work recently in Lebanon, has the freedom of the city. I am sure that those two complementary parts of the armed forces would work well together.

Robert Goodwill: The Minister has already mentioned the Territorial Army battalion. A number of soldiersfrom the Scarborough TA centre have served with distinction in a number of theatres. Sadly, the staffing has already been cut from six to three, with an NCO in charge. We are told that further cuts will mean that there will be no full-time staff. Can the Minister reassure me that the writing is not on the wall for the Scarborough TA centre?

Mike Hancock: Like the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), I met the base commander and the company concerned last week, when they raised the same important issue. Are the Government prepared to ensure the stability of all three naval yards—Devonport, Portsmouth and Rosyth—so that thereis a fair weighting of maintenance work? Will the Government also ensure that they rightly recognisethe loyalty of the work force by giving them continuous support for their actions over the past 100 years or more?

Adam Ingram: I know that my hon. Friend keeps a close eye on this subject, and I do not know how best to interpret the question. She knows that a major procurement programme is under way in terms of the Astute submarines, and the basing of that has been determined. There will be a long-term use of that particular capability. As we look towards future capabilities, we have set out what we intend to do about the replacement for Trident, if she was directing her question at that.  [Interruption.] The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) says that she was. I am giving a longer answer because there are bigger aspects to consider. There is more than just one elementto the debate, which is why I mentioned the Astute programme. In terms of how we look forward, that will all be part of the national debate. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will make a major contribution to that debate.

Des Browne: My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the RAF is providing significant support in Afghanistan, not only for our troops in the south but for other troops deployed in that part, particularly from the Kandahar air base where our Harriers are based. We have made the decision to continue to base the RAF there for some time into the future. She ought to recollect that not long after I was appointed to this job I made an announcement that we were deploying additional troops to the Kandahar air base to provide full security. Consequently, having made that decision and having deployed those troops from the RAF regiment, I am satisfied that security is sufficient forthe RAF.

Des Browne: The right hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head. I have the advantage of having been there, seen the distance and indeed travelled in a helicopter from Kandahar to where we are based. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, the helicopters are there because we believe that at present we can provide the level of support and in particular the security better at Kandahar than at Camp Bastion. At some time in the future we may well be able to provide that security at Camp Bastion, but that will be a matter for commanders on the ground and notfor me.

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman disadvantages himself by relying on a press report of what General Richards said. In fact, when General Richards used the word "anarchy", he used it specifically in relation to the lack of coherence in the network of international Government and non-governmental organisations operating in Afghanistan. He was not referring to the security situation or to the rule of law in the country. Lest it be thought that, by explaining the context of that reference, I am being complacent in any sense, I add that he went on to say that a number of measures were now in place that would tackle the problemof coherence in the Afghan and international community's response, including President Karzai's creation of a policy action group to co-ordinateand drive through key elements of Afghanistan's development. He was not talking about security at all when he used the word "anarchy".

Gerald Howarth: As the House is aware, my right hon. Friend the Leader ofthe Opposition and the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), are in Afghanistan, and I thank the Secretary of State for helping to facilitate their visit. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, we support the mission and, above all, the work undertaken by Her Majesty's armed forces, but Parliament has a duty to hold the Government to account for their policy in Afghanistan.
	The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) referred to NATO's commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Richards, who, on Friday night, said that western forces were "short of equipment" and were "running out of time". He said, too, that there was a lack of unity between thedifferent agencies responsible for implementing the reconstruction work, which means that the situation,as the Secretary of State acknowledged, "is close to anarchy". How on earth does that square with the written answer that the Secretary of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring last week, in which he said:
	"Neither the Taliban, nor the range of illegally armedgroups, currently pose a threat to the long-term stability of Afghanistan"?—[ Official Report, 18 July 2006; Vol. 449,c. 342W.]
	Surely there is an element of complacency in that, which ought not to be there?

Gerald Howarth: I am sure that the House is grateful to the Secretary of State for not reading out the entire speech that General Richards made, but he made it at a public gathering at the Royal United Services Institute and it has been widely reported. Either all the reporters have got it wrong, or there is something wrong with the right hon. Gentleman's recollection.
	I want to ask the Secretary of State something else about Afghanistan, which is extremely important. Increasing numbers of British troops are being deployed to Afghanistan and the United Kingdom has another role to play there. We have been charged specifically with the lead role in helping the Afghan Government to rid the country of drug production. Last week the Minister for the Middle East saidwhat the strategy should be. Perhaps I am quoting inaccurately and the Secretary of State can tell us if the newspapers have got it wrong, but the Minister said:
	"Go for the fat cats, very wealthy farmers, the movers and shakers of the drugs trade".
	General Sir Mike Jackson, Britain's most senior soldier, said:
	"To physically eradicate"
	opium poppies
	"before all the conditions are right seems to me to be counter-productive"—

Des Browne: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his persistence in trying to get from me an answer other than the one that I have given him now on a numberof occasions, which is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have many discussions, the nature of which I consider to be confidential. It was hardly a surprise to me that my right hon. Friend should make a speech that was entirely consistent with party policy. I only wish that all of the people on these Benches would make speeches that were entirely consistent with party policy.

Des Browne: I can confirm that it is not intendedto raid the conventional budget to pay for a new generation of nuclear deterrent, but I do that from a position that no decision has yet been made about whether there will be a new generation. The timing of the decision will be such that it will be able to be incorporated into the discussions between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury in the comprehensive spending review, and that is when the decisions will be made. Finally, the hon. Gentleman is not entitled to come to the conclusion that my answer meant that I did not have a conversation with my right hon. Friend about the content of his speech.

Adrian Bailey: Does my right hon. Friend agree thatin the long run it is essential to build up the capacityof the Iraqis themselves to develop their own infrastructure? What are British troops doing to assist that process?

Iraq

Des Browne: We have not run out of either moneyor soldiers. My announcement today, coupled withothers that I have made about urgent operational requirements for both our theatres, show that, when resources are necessary, we will find them.
	The deployment of individual soldiers is a matter for the Army. Identifying the appropriate troops, from whatever service, is entirely a matter for the services.

Mark Harper: Given the tempo of operations in Afghanistan and the necessary cost that that implies, and given that the Secretaryof State has confirmed that, before next year's comprehensive spending review, no strategic defence review or review of defence planning assumptions will take place, is he confident that the Chancellor will continue to fund the current or possibly increased tempo of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan from a special reserve, or will the costs fall on the regular defence budget?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend can look forward to having the opportunity to consider the available evidence on the nature of the risks and threats to our defence and security that we might face over the next 20 to 50 years. It will be the Government's duty to reflect on the full range of threats to the security ofthe nation, so as to inform the nation and its parliamentarians about the decision that they will need to make on how we configure our defence for that very uncertain future.

Des Browne: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be no hiding, discarding or non-publishing of information. The Government want the fullestpossible informed debate on this issue. When options are considered and discarded, I will accept the responsibility for explaining why that has happened, if indeed it comes to that. The problem with hon. Members asking such questions at this stage is that I always have to qualify my answers by saying that the risks, threats, options and costs have not yet been assessed, and that no recommendations have been made to any member of the Government. I am therefore not in a position to explain to the hon. Gentleman what the shape of the White Paper will be. However, it seems to me that it ought to take into account the geopolitical side as well as the military issues.

Tim Loughton: My constituent has just received an e-mail from her brother, who is serving in Afghanistan, which ends:
	"If it weren't for the inherent stubbornness and capabilityof the honest Tommy to simply get things done, the true professionalism of the best armed forces on this earth coupled with the exceptional efforts of a few exceptional officers, the prospects for this campaign would be bleak indeed".
	Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential that the lives of those brave British Tommys taking part in this vital mission should not be put at risk due to poor availability or poor positioning of essential kit, including helicopters? In that respect, how many helicopters are currently fit for purpose? What is he doing to reduce the number that are currently out of service?

Des Browne: The force that we have deployed in Afghanistan, and the additional forces that I announced to be deployed in Afghanistan, were designed by the commanders and approved by the chiefs of staff. I have not, and nor have any of my predecessors, refused to provide anything that has been requested for our operations in Afghanistan. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have provided additional support for the helicopter fleet in particular.

Andrew Turner: The mere fact that we are replacing helicopters elsewhere with contractors suggests that there is a shortage of helicopters. I, too, am receiving communications from relatives of people deployed in Afghanistan who are concerned about the level of support. Can the Secretary of State tell mehow many other countries in NATO are deploying helicopters in Afghanistan?

John Hutton: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the Government's plans for reform of the child support system.
	Parents, whether they live together or not, have a moral as well as a legal responsibility to support their children. Relationships end, but responsibilities do not. Government and society have a clear interest in ensuring that those responsibilities are honoured. That was the foundation on which the Child Support Act 1991 rested, and I believe that those are the right foundations on which to build any future system of child support. But as we know, despite the best efforts of its staff the overall performance of the Child Support Agency has fallen well short of expectations. When we came to office the agency cost more to run than it collected in maintenance, and it has been taking longer to process claims than the court arrangements that it replaced.
	The Child Support, Pensions and Social SecurityAct 2000 made important changes, simplifying maintenance calculations and allowing parents with care on benefit to keep up to £10 of any maintenance received. Since 1997, the agency has nearly doubled the number of cases receiving maintenance payments. However, as we all know, problems have persisted. Only a minority of cases handled by the CSA receive any maintenance at all. There is a backlog of around 300,000 cases. Debts of over £3 billion have built up, with limited prospects of recovery. There is a net cost to the taxpayer of around £200 million per year. Levels of customer service, although they have improved recently, have never reached the standards of quality and consistency that the public are entitled to expect.
	The need for radical overhaul is clear, but I do not believe that the continuing problems are due to a failing on the part of the staff of the agency. Rather, I believe that they are due to a failing of the policy framework, and of the system that the staff are being asked to run. That is why, in February, I asked Sir David Henshaw to redesign our system of child support. He has now presented his recommendations to me. Copies are available in the Vote Office and on my Department's website, together with the Government's response.
	Sir David has recommended an entirely new system for child support that will be simpler to use and administer, will be tougher on parents who do not face up to their responsibilities and will make a bigger impact on the reduction in child poverty, while delivering value for money for the taxpayer. His recommendations have four main elements.
	First, Sir David believes that the system should focus on tackling child poverty by ensuring that parents with care keep more of the maintenance owed to them. He recommends that lone parents on benefit should be allowed to keep more maintenance through a significant increase in the extent to which child maintenance is disregarded in income-related benefits.
	Secondly, Sir David believes that a new system should promote greater personal responsibility by ensuring that, wherever possible, we help parents reach their own financial arrangements for the maintenance of their children. That means reconfiguring advice services to improve the quality and accessibility of information and guidance for parents. Sir David also believes that the Government should remove the requirement that parents with care on benefits make an application for child maintenance through the CSA even when a perfectly satisfactory private arrangement already exists. As a first step towards getting maintenance flowing to children, Sir David recommends that, with up to a fifth of potential child support cases not having their fathers' names on their birth certificates, we should consider the joint registration of births.
	When parents cannot reach an amicable agreement, the parents with care need to be confident that the enforcement arrangements will be effective. The third element of Sir David's recommendations is the introduction of new, tougher enforcement powers, including the withdrawal of passports. He also recommends exploring the potential to make better use of existing financial penalties.
	Fourthly, Sir David proposes that there should be a clean break with the past. He believes that the delivery of child support requires a fresh start with a new organisation. He believes that there should be no automatic conversion of cases from the two existing schemes to the new redesigned system. Instead, parents wishing to use the new system should be able to reapply. He recommends that there should be a separate residuary body to "manage down" and enforce old debt, and that we should consider how best to give the new organisation power to charge clients for using the new system.
	Sir David has consulted widely in producing his recommendations. I am grateful to him for his work, and grateful to all who have contributed to it. As his report shows, tougher enforcement and a substantially higher disregard could increase the number of children receiving maintenance to about 1.75 million, compared with just 1.1 million today. The changes will lift many more children out of poverty, and a smaller, more focused agency that deals with significantly fewer cases will deliver better value to the taxpayer, with administrative costs substantially lower over the long run. Although there is still a great deal of detail to be dealt with, I think it right that the Government should signal their view of the way ahead.
	We have decided to accept the principal recommendations. We will therefore bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity to remove the requirement that all parents with care claiming benefit are treated as applying for child maintenance. We agree with Sir David's recommendation that there should be a higher disregard, but that must ensure a fair deal for taxpayers and avoid sending any signal that families might be better off apart than together, so we intend significantly to increase the level of the current disregard of £10. Details will be confirmed later this year.
	Both those changes will help more families to receive more maintenance and reduce the risk of child poverty. They reflect both the rights of children to be properly maintained by their parents and the right of societyto ensure that parental responsibilities are properly discharged. We also agree that the delivery of child support requires a fresh start. We will therefore create a new organisation to replace the CSA and we will strengthen enforcement powers.
	We intend to go even further and seek legislation to strengthen the powers available to the agency to recover maintenance from those who repeatedly fail to pay, including through the imposition of curfews as wellas the suspension of passports. We will explore publicising successful prosecutions, including the feasibility of naming those who have been prosecuted. We will continue the CSA's current operational improvement plan, which is already improving our capacity to trace people who owe maintenance and which should see the CSA collecting a further£250 million in unpaid maintenance.
	There is still a great deal of detail in Sir David's report that should now properly be the subject of fuller consultation and debate. In particular, we want to consult on the best way to allow existing claimants either to move to private arrangements or to make a claim to the new system. We must ensure that, where people currently receive maintenance through the CSA, they continue to do so, if they wish, under the new system, without disrupting the payment of child maintenance.
	We should consult on how best to deal with the legacy of debt that is left, while protecting the interests of both families and the taxpayer. We should also consult on the appropriate role for the courts in the new approach, how to improve parental responsibility from birth—including the possibility of compulsory registration for fathers—and how we can further simplify and improve the current assessment, collection and enforcement processes. We will also consult on the details of any new charging regime.
	In advance of legislation, I intend to publish a White Paper later this year, which will set out in greater detail the way forward in all of these areas. In the meantime, I have asked Sir David to report to me on the policy and implementation issues that arise from his first report. During the process of change, agency staff are entitled to expect the full support of my Department, and they will have it. In particular, we will do all we can to help and support staff through the transition to the new organisation and in their efforts to ensure that children and families receive the maintenance to which they are properly entitled.
	The original proposals for child support had a wide and broad measure of support in the House, but the consensus on aims was never translated into a consensus on means: we must not repeat the same mistake. That is why I want the new arrangements now be established to command the broadest possible measure of agreement. I believe that there is a clear sense, both in the House and outside it, that our system of child support needs radical change. It must offer better value for money for the taxpayer, enforce the rights of children and the responsibilities of parents more successfully and ensure that families and children in particular do not slide into poverty when parents split up.
	I believe that the proposals I have set out today can help us better to achieve those vital objectives, which is why I commend the statement to the House.

Philip Hammond: I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in letting me have a copy of the statement in advance, although he will understand that we have not yet had a chance to absorb the details of Sir David's report.
	I am sorry to tell the Secretary of State that his statement will be a disappointment to the 1.5 million families trapped in the shambles of the Child Support Agency, particularly the 900,000 who are trapped in the old system. The statistics are familiar to the House and the Secretary of State recited them again today, so I shall not repeat them, but what those people wanted to hear today was, above all, a timetable for moving them on to a new system of assessment. What they have got is yet another delay for further reports and more consultation, so they will feel let down once again.
	The Government have invested half a billion pounds of taxpayers' money in their redesign of the CSA system and now propose to turn their back on that investment and start again. The headline in press releases this morning is "CSA to be scrapped", but the reality is that the existing, failing CSA will be rebranded and left with its difficult case load while the political spotlight will be shifted to a new body with low costs, no legacy and a carefully controlled onflow of suitable new cases.
	We share the Government's stated determination to maintain the obligation on both parents to contribute to the upbringing and support of a child. We also share the view that, where those arrangements can be made voluntarily, they should be. But in the real world, that will often not be the case, and it is not obvious what the incentive of a high benefit disregard will achieve in those cases that are not settled voluntarily. If a CSA application is made, we are back in exactly the position that we are now. If a CSA application is not made, we are back in exactly the position that we are now, with the difference that there will not even be a theoretical accrual of liability by the absent parent to offset the state's payments to support the lone parent and her children. The absent parent will be totally off the hook, so what price the Government's commitment to both parents contributing to their children's support?
	Any advantage that the proposed change will bring lies solely in the cases where voluntary arrangements are made. Does the Secretary of State have any evidence about the proportion of benefit cases that that might involve? I note that, when he first referred to Sir David's recommendation to remove the requirement that parents on benefits with care must make a CSA application, he used the phrase,
	"when there is a perfectly satisfactory private arrangement already in place".
	But when he went on to announce that the Government would legislate to remove the requirement, there was no reference to the qualifying condition. So perhaps he can clarify whether the requirement will be removed in all cases, or only in cases where there is evidence that a satisfactory voluntary private agreement exists.
	I also assume that the higher level of disregard will apply to all payments, not just those made voluntarily. If that is the case, while that disregard may have a significant impact on tackling child poverty in lone parent families, it will not operate as an incentive to agree voluntary arrangements, which I understood to be the Secretary of State's original motivation for using the higher disregard in those cases only.
	We have heard nothing of how parents not on benefit will be encouraged to make voluntary arrangements—other than vague reference to a threat to charge for the new agency's services. I suspect that on an otherwise rather dismal day that may be the only thought that raises some merriment in single parent households that are trapped in the CSA bureaucracy at the moment.
	Most importantly, the Secretary of State failed to deal with the key issue: the robustness of the assessment process, which was the focus of the 2000 Act reforms—sacrificing precision for simplicity—that are now acknowledged to have failed. Is the right hon. Gentleman really proposing to set up a new body attempting to assess and constantly reassess a payment that is due on the basis of fluctuating or uncertain in-year income? Unless the assessment process is made robust for those difficult cases, no system of collection will be effective. If the value of the claim cannot be accurately assessed on a real-time basis, no enforcement system, however draconian, will work.
	There is no reason to suppose that the new agency will be any more successful than the old if it is constantly struggling to establish and maintain an accurate basis of assessment. When the right hon. Gentleman described Sir David's remit as a redesign of the system, I understood that he was prepared to tackle this issue, but there is nothing in the statement on it—nothing, as the product of the past six months' work, except a reference to it as something thatrequires further consultation and debate. There is no recognition of the fundamental importance of the assessment tool to a robust system of child maintenance.
	We will look carefully at Sir David's report and its implications. In the meantime, I have couple of specific questions for the right hon. Gentleman. Can he give the House an estimate of the cost of the proposals? Obviously, the £200 million that the CSA is collecting for the Exchequer as a contribution to the agency's costs will be lost. In fact, far from scrapping the agency, there will be the cost of maintaining two separate bodies, so can he tell us what the overall cost will be?
	Can the Secretary of State also tell us what the programme will be for migration from the existing system to the new system, and over what period that will take place? Presumably, some people will have to remain with the residual agency, as access to the new system will have to be rationed at the outset in order to prevent it from being swamped. How will the Secretary of State deliver a perception of fairness in that migration process, as being on the new system will bring a huge financial benefit but it seems inevitable that that will have to be rationed over a number of years?
	Can the Secretary of State give us a bit more of a feel about the level of the disregard? If he cannot give the exact amount of that, can he at least give some indication of it, because it is very difficult to understand the proposals without that? In his comments, he recognised that there is a risk that introducing a large disregard might create a perverse incentive for struggling families to give up and split up. What work has he done to establish to his own satisfaction that that will not result from the changes that he has announced today? Finally, can he tell us who will run this new body? Will they be the same people who run and staff the existing CSA?
	We are disappointed by this statement, as will be hundreds of thousands of lone parents. It is mightily thin on substance. It consists of a rebranding exercise with no change to the substantive arrangements in, I suspect, a majority of cases, and that is not a solution for the families involved. We recognise that there is a need to make the system more effective, and to be more pragmatic about ways to increase the flow of maintenance, without losing sight of the underlying principles. Unfortunately however, it is not clear that the proposals address the fundamental flaws in the system. Having just poured half a billion pounds down the drain in respect of the CS2 system, the Government cannot safely move on and start again without being 100 per cent. sure that the real underlying causes of the problem have been identified and fixed.

David Laws: May I thank the Secretary of State for his typical courtesy in making available a copy of the statement and of the documents so far in advance of today's oral statement? May I also congratulate Sir David Henshaw and his team on completing this work in such a short time? Does not the speed of Sir David's work contrast with the Government's own tardiness in dealing with this issue since 1997 and, indeed, since the 2005 general election? I remind the Secretary of State that since that election, we have had a review of the CSA's future, followed by a redesign of the policy on the CSA. We are now being offered today a consultation on the CSA's future, to be followed by a White Paper on the CSA's future. If the Secretary of State's own document is to be believed, that will followed merely by
	"an ambition...to see some aspects of the new system in place from 2008".
	In other words, what he is offering us today is that,11 years after his Government came to power,
	"some aspects of the new system"
	will be in place. Does he think that that is really good enough, and does he acknowledge that his Government have wasted 10 years in dealing with this issue?
	Is that point not also reinforced by what Sir David says at the beginning of his own document? He says that he had a very demanding timetable that was
	"not sufficient to allow for a full redesign",
	but which allowed him to indicate only "the direction" of his new policy.
	The Secretary of State said today that the CSA is going to be scrapped, which is what we have heard according to all the spin outside this place. He had previously said that he would not scrap it until he was clear what it was going to be replaced with. What is it going to be replaced with? Is it not astonishing that all that he can say today, in paragraph 55 of his own document, about the CSA's future replacement is that there are a range of approaches that could be takento the structure of the governance of such an organisation, and that an intensive programme of work will be undertaken, including full consultation with staff, to figure out a way forward? Is it really acceptable that, after 11 years in power—that is how long this Government will have been in power when these measures will, so the Secretary of State says, be implemented—he still does not know what he intends to replace the CSA with?
	Is the agency going to remain under the DWP? Is it still going to be run by the existing chief executive, and is it going to be based at the existing locations? If so, is this not going to end up being a rebadging, rather than a fundamental replacement of the existing agency? The Secretary of State indicated that he intends to reinforce enforcement powers. Why has he proposed to introduce curfews for non-resident parents who are not adhering to their child support obligations when that proposal was not made by Sir David Henshaw? Will he tell us how effective that is likely to be? Is it likely to be as ineffective as previous Government gimmicks, such as withdrawing driving licences? That measure was used only 11 times in four and a half years.
	We welcome the new emphasis on people making their own arrangements and the higher disregard that Sir David recommended and that the Secretary of State has undertaken to consider, but will he assure us that he will not use a charging mechanism for resident parents who have to use the agency and have had to deal with an incompetent service over the previous13 years of the agency's life, and who would be astonished to have to pay for the use of this incompetent agency in the future? Have the Government gone far enough in giving the new CSA access to the sort of income details that it would be able to get if it were part of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, and the ability to deduct money directly at source?
	Today's statement, which was made almost 10 years after the Labour party came to power, contained a set of proposals that seem to amount to no more than re-badging with additional lengthy delay and more gimmicks. Should we not have expected more after10 years?

John Hutton: I say to the hon. Gentleman what I said to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond): this is not a re-badging exercise, but a fundamental change to every aspect—root and branch—of the child support system. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) did not have the courage of his previous convictions and did not repeat his support for the transfer of responsibilities to HMRC. As he will know, that was considered on page 50 of Sir David Henshaw's report and rejected for perfectly sensible reasons. He and his hon. Friends could usefully go away and study that. We cannot solve the problem of the administration by simply relocating it to a different part of Government. That is not the right way to deal with the problems of the CSA, because those problems are not just organisational or administrative. They are much more fundamental than that. That is why Sir David has come to his view that transferring the CSA to HMRC, which I understand is the hon. Gentleman's policy, would not be right. We have no intention whatsoever of taking that course.
	The hon. Gentleman berated the Government for taking 11 years to come to this decision. We tried very hard. We have tried repeatedly in recent years to make the arrangements that we inherited work. We have revisited the legislation and invested heavily in support and IT systems for the CSA. It does not work. We should have the courage to say that it is time to turn over a new leaf. That is what I am trying to do. He might catch up with us at some point, but I am afraid that he is significantly behind the curve today.
	Most of the changes will require primary legislation. That is why we cannot announce the detail of all of them today. We cannot implement them until both Houses of Parliament have agreed that there should be changes to the primary legislation. That is called the democratic process and the hon. Gentleman will have to take part in that, as everyone else will, and I am sure that we will hear his views in due course.
	I have made it clear that the operational details in relation to the structure of the new organisation will be set out in the White Paper. In relation to the enforcement powers, Sir David Henshaw suggestedthat we take on board the idea of a passport disqualification power and we will certainly do that. He has also made it clear in the report—the hon. Gentleman should study it—that he wants us to consider what further measures might add to the enforcement powers of the Child Support Agency. It is important that we have the powers. They will not necessarily always be used, but they will be a deterrent. That is the point and that is the way in which we should judge the success of all these issues. I want the CSA, now and in the future, to come down like a ton of bricks on absent fathers—it is usually absent fathers, but let us say absent parents—who are not discharging their legal and moral duties to support their children.
	We will look for support from both sides of the House to strengthen the enforcement powers of the Child Support Agency, and I am sure that I will have it from my hon. Friends. When it comes to making some of the hard decisions, these guys—the Liberal Democrats—are never to be found anywhere on the premises. Given that, the hon. Gentleman's response is entirely predictable.

John Hutton: I will take further interest in the case that the hon. Gentleman cited, but I hope that he will make it clear that we are not deserting families. It is necessary to replace the CSA with a new organisation for reasons that are pretty widely accepted across the House, despite the comments of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. In the intervening period, it is important that we do all that we can to support people, such as the constituent of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), who are not getting the support to which they are entitled fromthe CSA.
	By the way, we are investing another £120 million over the next three years in trying to deal with this and other related ongoing problems of the CSA. We are in no way walking away from the problems in the CSA that are there for us all to see. If the hon. Gentleman wants to confirm the details of the case to me again, I will certainly take a personal interest in it.

Gregory Campbell: Is the indication in Sir David's report of possibly reaching a maintenance figure of 1.75 million children, most of whom live in poverty, as distinct from the1.1 million currently reached, to be a Government target? If so, when can we expect it to be reached? In addition, will there be recruitment to the new agency or new organisation that replaces the CSA? If so, will the Secretary of State ensure that the Government do their best to ensure that recruitment to those employee levels in Northern Ireland reflects the community, unlike the situation in the recent past?

John Hutton: I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are not returning to the previous CSA arrangement, where exclusive responsibility resided with the courtsto recover maintenance. That is definitely not whatSir David is recommending and not what we are proposing today. On maintenance agreements, it will be for the parents to reach their own agreement on what they feel is appropriate in the case of their separation and family situation, but if they cannot reach an agreement or the agreement breaks down, it will be the responsibility under the new arrangements of the CSA to step in and to enforce the agreement according to the proper formula in statute. We are mindful of the need to ensure that there is no abuse of women in particular and of parents with care in those arrangements, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for indicating in principle his support for the direction of travel.

Mark Todd: May I particularly commend the steps to encourage voluntary agreements between parents? Will my right hon. Friend set out in more detail the measures that he has in mind, including advice and other services for parents? Will he bear in mind, too, the durability of such agreements, in the face of the evidence of fractured relationships,and changed and new relationships that establish completely different household incomes, and that require a complete reassessment?

John Hutton: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Sir David has recommended that the CSA of the future develop more of an advisory and help and support role for couples who are splitting up and for families in those circumstances. It is important for those people to be given proper financial advice. Onmy hon. Friend's latter point, the way forward thatSir David identified will be partly through the more generous maintenance disregard, which he believes—and I think that he is right—will encourage and incentivise more sustainable and durable financial agreements between separating couples. That is the direction of travel that Sir David believes it is right to follow, and he is absolutely right.

Sally Keeble: Inthe context of his welcome new proposals, can myright hon. Friend say how he foresees new family relationships being dealt with? I have often found that the objections to the CSA proposals and the pursuit of absent fathers come from mothers in a new relationship and the impact that the payments have on the family income.

Paul Rowen: The Secretary of State rightly said that the proposals would take time, andin the meantime the law will be enforced. Has he any interim proposals to improve the operational ability of the CSA to ensure that the 300,000 claimants are dealt with much more quickly?

Clive Efford: Any of us who have struggled with the CSA will welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Does he agree that unless we can deal dealing with people who can make a modicum of change in their financial arrangements—that is, if they are self-employed or if they have a sympathetic employer—the enforcement powers included in his statement will not be worth the paper they are written on? May I urge him to test his enforcement powers against some of those cases? If he would like a few case histories, I am prepared to provide some from my constituency. The CSA fell down most in that respect and we must get it right now.

John Hutton: That sounds to me like a request thatwe go back to the courts having primary responsibility for dealing with these matters. I see that the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me. That is not whatSir David Henshaw is recommending and it is not what the Government believe to be the right way forward.As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are proposals before the House to re-examine the matter of contact orders. That legislation is still progressing, and I am sure he will have the opportunity to make such comments in that regard.

John Hutton: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	The reforms in the Bill set a new direction of travel for our welfare system. They are underpinned by a belief in an active enabling welfare state that sees tackling poverty and social exclusion as its central mission, with no one left behind and no one written off. The Bill therefore marks a major shift away from the established orthodoxy of welfare provision in our country, which has always treated functional limitations as automatically disqualifying people from the world of work. That is based on a flawed analysis of the nature of disability and the rights of disabled people, and it is time we changed it.
	The Bill before us today therefore signals a new approach. It offers new support in return for new obligations for people to help themselves, and it delivers on our manifesto commitment to reform incapacity benefits while ensuring security for those who cannot work. Together with the wider welfare measures set out in our Green Paper, the Bill continues a process of reform that has sought to lock in the right set of values: of universality and opportunity; of security and equity; of fairness and due process— values that stretch back to Beveridge—under which the right to work is fundamental in tackling poverty and building aspiration for everyone in our society.
	When we came to office nearly 6 million people in Britain were dependent on benefits. Between 1979 and 1997 unemployment went up by 50 per cent., and in a world where discrimination already scarred the lives of many disabled people and older workers, the numbers claiming incapacity benefits trebled, while 3 million children were left to live in poverty. I make no apology for reminding the House of those grim and shameful statistics. They set the context for the challenge that we now face, and they teach us valuable lessons about the role of the welfare state in today's society.
	Through the minimum wage and tax credits, we have tried to make work pay, and through record investment in the new deal and Jobcentre Plus we have begun to create an enabling welfare state that tries to respond to the needs of individuals and matches rights with responsibilities.
	Today, as a result, there are more people in work than ever before—2.5 million more than in 1997, with the biggest increases in the neighbourhoods and cities that started in the poorest position. Overall, there are 1 million fewer people on benefits, and 2 million children and 2 million pensioners have been helped to escapethe poverty line. As last month's Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report showed, not only do we have the highest employment rate among the G7 countries but, for the first timein 50 years, we have the lowest combination of unemployment and inactivity rates.
	Of course, there is more that needs doing. The challenge that we face today is how to build a modern welfare state that allows people to exercise their fundamental right to work, when our economy and our society are changing more rapidly than at any time since the industrial revolution. While the pace of such change can seem daunting or even terrifying, the forces that lie behind it, in my view, represent progress, not decline, and they hold out more opportunities than threats. If we can take full advantage of them, they will extend the chance to reduce poverty and social exclusion in our society.
	We must act to meet that challenge, which is why we have set ourselves the aspiration of an 80 per cent. employment rate, with 1 million fewer people receiving incapacity benefits, 1 million more older people in work and an extra 300,000 lone parents off benefit. That is why we are taking forward through secondary legislation the measures in our welfare reform Green Paper to provide more support to lone parents and to break down the barriers experienced by older workers. And that is why we have introduced the Welfare Reform Bill, which will enact crucial elements of the proposals that we set out to the House in January.

John Hutton: Unemployment is a lot lower than it used to be, when the Conservative Government were in office. Labour Members remember that unemployment twice reached 3 million under the stewardship of the Conservative party.
	The hon. Gentleman asks what the Bill will do for jobseekers. The Bill primarily focuses on the needs of people who currently have some functional limitation and are unable to work. The thrust of the proposals is to encourage the speedy return of those people tothe labour market. Any of the hon. Gentleman's constituents who currently claim incapacity benefit will have access, in the next 18 months to two years, to the pathways to work programme—the first attempt by any Government, Conservative or Labour, to do something practical and positive for people who are out of the labour market because of incapacity and who desperately want to return to it.

John Hutton: I hope we will see that later. Certainly,it has been indicated so far that Opposition parties broadly support the proposals in the Green Paper.

John Hutton: I am happy to congratulate those staff. I visited the pathways to work scheme in Derbyshire a few months ago; it has probably been one of the most outstandingly successful examples of how this typeof intervention can work. What was significant in Derbyshire, as we heard a few minutes ago, was that cognitive behavioural therapists were directly employed to fast-track the provision of help and support for people with mental health problems, to give them the self-confidence to represent themselves to employers and to secure work—and many have succeeded in doing so. That is a model of what more needs to be done, and what we are keen to extend across the country.

John Hutton: That is a genuine problem. However,it does not lend itself to any quick legislative fix.The Bill contains nothing that would directly tacklethe concerns that my hon. Friend raises. We have responsibilities in Jobcentre Plus to ensure that we do everything we can to support people with mental health problems in staying active in the labour market. We will continue to discuss with my hon. Friend and others ways in which we might improve on those methods.

Madeleine Moon: Bridgend has been an incredibly successful pathways to work pilot scheme area. Unemployment is 2.6 per cent., with fewer than 1,200 unemployed, but more than 5,000 people are on incapacity benefit. On Friday, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and I met the mental health matters group from Bridgend. Its members were worried about whetherthe personal capability assessment recognised thattheir capacity to cope changes daily. Even a changein medication or moving to a cheaper brand of medication can affect their performance and capacity to attend for interview. Will that be taken into account, and not lead to people losing their right to benefit because of a fluctuation in capacity?

Mark Francois: I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in giving way. Clauses 41 and 42 refer to recovering overpaid benefits. In his statement an hour or so earlier, he announced that the Child Support Agency would no longer be with us. As a critic of that agency for many years, I am pleased that it will finally be buried, even if thefuneral is somewhat delayed. We are clearly dealing with some sensitive client groups in recovering those overpayments. Although the taxpayer must be protected, will the Secretary of State give some assurance that his officials will handle those cases sensitively and with appropriate discretion?

John Hutton: Not at the moment.
	At present, nine out of 10 people who come on to incapacity benefit expect to get back into work. Yet as we all know, if they have been on incapacity benefit for more than two years, they are more likely to retire or die than ever to get another job. Little is expected of claimants, and almost no support is offered to them. The gateway to the benefit is poorly managed, and a person gets paid more the longer their claim continues. Even the name of the benefit sends a signal that a person is incapable, and that there is nothing that can be done.
	The Bill seeks to change that. It provides for a transformed medical assessment as the gateway to the new benefit, with an assessment process that forthe first time properly looks at a person's potential capability to engage in the labour market, rather than simply measuring the level of their incapacity. It provides for a new benefit system founded on the concept of measuring and building up each individual's capability rather than writing them off as incapable, and a radical extension of the support available, which will be underpinned by the extension of pathways to work to every part of Britain by 2008.
	We are continuing to review the design of the new medical assessment, and we are particularly conscious of how important that process is for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities.

John Hutton: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. It will be important that, apart from having access to the support group, people have a regular face-to-face medical examination of their condition, so that we are able to provide them with the right measure of help and support that they need. This is a failure of the present system. I know that there are some of my own constituents who have not seen anyone for some considerable time, and that is not an acceptable way to run our welfare state.
	My hon. Friend said that I was coming to an important part of my speech. I am not sure how he knew that, but I have been trying to get to it for quite a while. I would like to remind people of what I was saying about the design of the new personal capabilities assessment. We have created review groups, involving both technical and stakeholder experts, to look atthe mental health and physical components of the assessment. We intend to complete this work by September so that we can provide a clear view of the new assessment during the Bill's Committee stage.
	The new personal capability assessment will identify those who are capable of undertaking work-related activity and the support and interventions that will be necessary to help them get back to work. It will identify separately people who are so limited by their illness or disability that it would be unreasonable to require them to undertake any form of work-related activity.

Angela Browning: I notice that on several occasions the Secretary of State has referred to getting people back into work. Will some of the proposals that he is spelling out todayalso apply to people who have never enjoyed paid employment? They include people with learning disabilities, autism or mental health problems, who might well be in their 20s or 30s, and who would like to work but have no previous experience of doing so.

John Hutton: I accept that there is fear about all these issues, and it is important that we dispel those fears. There is no reason for people to be fearful. We invest significantly in the training of personal advisers in Jobcentre Plus. Through pathways, we have been doing this for the best part of two years, and we are beginning to find a sensible way forward. I do not doubt that there are areas for improvement, and Jobcentre Plus is always ready and willing to learn. If there is a role for some of the voluntary organisations to help us to train our staff properly, we should explore that further. We are making progress. It is not our intention to be punitive as we develop these approaches; that wouldbe wrong. As I have tried to say previously, we can be radical, which I believe that these reforms are, without being punitive. I hope that my hon. Friend does not infer from anything that I have said today, or anything in the Green Paper, that we will punish people unfairly because they have a level of incapacity. That would be totally at odds with the values to which I referred earlier, and forms no part of the approach that we want to develop.

David Laws: Will the Secretary of State clarify what aspect of non-compliance the private and voluntary-sector providers might sanction? Might it relate to participation at an interview, takingup employment opportunities, or obtaining medical assistance?

John Hutton: That is a very good question and I wish that I had the exact answer to it right now, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform deals with it in his winding-up speech.
	Following consultation on the Green Paper, wemade two substantial changes to our proposals. First, we listened carefully to concerns that the adoption of jobseeker's allowance rates in the employment and support allowance would penalise disabled young people. It was never our intention to discriminate against young disabled people and we decided that young people will now get the same basic allowance as everyone else in the main phase of the ESA.
	Secondly, there were strong concerns from employers over our proposals to simplify statutory sick pay. Our intention was to simplify the process of administering the scheme while maintaining the crucial balance between helping to keep costs down and retaining protection for the most vulnerable employees. Employers felt that the simplicity they would gain from these changes was not sufficient to outweigh the loss of flexibility that waiting days gave them, so we decided not to proceed with those proposals at that point. We will instead invite all interested stakeholders to discuss with us the scope for alternative approaches to simplification, which must not, however, involve unreasonable costs to employers.

John Hutton: Yes, but it will not and we will make sure of that in the regulations.
	Part 2 takes forward our Green Paper proposals to simplify the existing housing benefit system to improve work incentives and encourage personal responsibility for housing choices. Following the success of the18 pathfinder areas, the Bill will facilitate the extension of local housing allowance across the deregulated private rented sector. Where possible, to promote personal responsibility among tenants, we propose that payments of housing benefit will be made to the tenant, rather than the landlord, but appropriate safeguards will be in place to protect both tenants and landlords so that in cases where tenants are likely to have difficulty in managing their affairs, payments can still be made to the landlord.

Andrew Love: My right hon. Friend rightly points to the success of the18 pathfinder areas. One reason for their success is the enhanced money advice provided in those areas, so will he give us an assurance that such an enhanced money advice service will be available on the roll-out nationwide?

John Hutton: I can just point to the research and the outcomes in the pathfinder areas, and my hon. Friend might want to study them. We have seen no correlation between the direct payment of the local housing allowance in those areas and any difficulty that those tenants have in paying their rent. There has been no increase in arrears and no problem with landlords then seeking to evict tenants. As a general principle, it is right to treat adults as adults and for the payment of rent to go directly to them.
	There are safeguards, however, and in the pathfinder areas—we have been very clear about this—about15 per cent. of those who are eligible for local housing allowance have not received it directly, because they felt that they were at risk of not paying up. There are problems, for example, if someone has a drug or alcohol dependency. We certainly do not want to make matters worse in those cases. There is a sensible way to deal with those concerns that does not underminethe fundamental principle—this must be right in the welfare state—that we should treat people in the benefits system as adults. We manage money; they are perfectly capable of managing money, too, and we should not start with any assumption that they cannot do so.

Gordon Marsden: I want to touch on the 1 million target, which, although ambitious, should be put in front of us. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is extremely important—particularly in a constituency such as mine, where many of the target people onIB might have been in that position for five or10 years—to focus on an element of job progression if we are successful in getting them into work, so that they do not think that they are coming into work at a relatively low level, without aspirations and skills or the training that they need to develop them thereafter?

Lyn Brown: Given that 60 per cent. of people come off incapacity benefit within the first year, is it realistic to assume that we can take1 million people off it? If we are basing that estimate on pathways to work figures, how can we be sure that the 8 per cent. of people in respect of pathways to work are not also included in the 60 per cent. of people who would normally naturally come off incapacity benefit in the first year?

John Hutton: That is obviously true, but we should be confident that we will succeed in meeting the ambitious target that we have set ourselves. The economy and the labour market are strong. Employment opportunities clearly exist, and they are continuing to grow. More people are in work this year than when we came into office, and the numbers are still increasing. Under the stewardship of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, those of us on the Labour Benches are entitled to be confident about our economy developing in theright way.

Geraldine Smith: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the measures to deal with antisocial behaviour. Let me give him an example of such behaviour. In Morecambe last night, I was called to a house at10.30 pm to witness extremely loud music that was being played by people in flats across the road—I suspect that those people claim benefit. I was told that they continue to play their music until 3 o'clock in the morning and drink alcohol outside. Of course, those people might not have to get up for work the next morning, but several people in the street do. This is a considerable problem, so the Secretary of State is right to look at measures to deal with people on benefit who are committing antisocial behaviour.

Joan Walley: I am most grateful. May I take the Secretary of State back to the issue referred to a couple of interventions ago—areas in which many people are on incapacity benefit? Will he work with colleaguesto develop a joined-up approach to this issue, andtry to find opportunities to link the relocation of Government Departments under the Lyons reviewto areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, in which we need to create even more jobs?

Michael Clapham: Will my right hon. Friend give way on the question of part 4?

John Hutton: indicated assent.

Michael Clapham: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I draw to his attention clause 55, schedule 6 and the reference to pneumoconiosis. Under the schedule, a claim made more than 20 years after a period of employment ended will be disregarded. In effect, that will mean that very few pneumoconiosis-related claims will be made under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979. As he will be aware, provision for bringing a claim under that Act came in when British Coal ceased to exist, in 2004, but because of the way in which the schedule is drafted, it will not be possible to make such a claim. I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on that, and to see whether we can consider the nature of the disease in deciding whether a claim is proceeded with.

Philip Hammond: As the Secretary of State knows, we are generally supportive of the overall structure that was put forward in the Green Paper proposals and of which the Bill is an integral part. In the three key areas—incapacity and sickness benefit; getting lone parents into work; and getting older people into the workplace, or enabling them to remain in the workplace—we agree that there is a need for change in order to contribute to the Government's target of80 per cent. working age participation in the work force. It is essential to achieve that target in the face of a rising dependency ratio. I agree with the Secretary of State that we cannot afford to leave anyone behind in 21st-century Britain, so we are broadly supportive of the proposals that we are considering today, but I hope that he will understand that, within that broad support, there are a number of things that we want to question and matters that we want to raise.
	Welfare reform has been on the Prime Minister's "to do" list since 1997. It struck me that there is a remarkable similarity between the language of the 1998 Green Paper and that of the 2006 Green Paper, which the Secretary of State published earlier this year. The 1998 Green Paper states:
	"People who could work are too often consigned to a life on benefits; those who satisfy the...Test for incapacity benefits are effectively written off and given no help to make the most of their potential."
	Many Labour Members may think that the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) went a little far when she said that Labour had done "sweet nothing" to tackle incapacity benefit since 1997, but it is clear that, despite the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, many of the aspirations in the 1998 Green Paper remain unfulfilled—hence the repetition of some of the language in this year's Green Paper and many of the key elements of the Bill.
	Of course, the Bill and the accompanying notes leave a number of questions unanswered. That is partly an inevitable consequence of the structure of the Bill. Itis very much a framework and I welcome the confirmation that the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform was able to give at departmental questions last week that draft regulations will be made available to the Committee before consideration of the relevant parts of the Bill.
	Part 1, as the Secretary of State has said, introduces the new employment and support allowance and the arrangements around it, which are inextricably linked to the recently announced roll-out of the pathways to work programme, which will support the measures in the Bill. We agree that a degree of compulsion inthe employment and support allowance regime is appropriate, provided that adequate support is in place, especially for people with disabilities. Many people who have been out of the workplace for a long time will lack the self-confidence that they might otherwise have and will need firm encouragement to re-engage in work.
	The first point on which I seek clarification relates to the baseline for the Secretary of State's announced target. The Government set out a target of a reduction of 1 million in the number of people on incapacity benefit. In its report, the Select Committee was critical of the lack of detailed baseline information andthe Government have subsequently published that information. It shows that in any case—with no additional action whatsoever—it is expected that there will be a 360,000 drop in the number of people on incapacity benefit by 2014-15. That is thus the baseline number, without any of the measures in the Bill or the extended roll-out of pathways to work. Just so that we are clear about the backdrop against which we are conducting the debate, the target for the newregime is to deliver not a reduction of 1 million inincapacity benefit numbers compared with the existing baseline projection, but a 640,000 reduction. Whenthe Secretary of State told the Select Committee that1 million was "a net figure" and not a
	"clever statistical sleight of hand",
	he was right, because including 360,000 people who are already in the baseline as part of the net figure is a rather crude statistical sleight of hand. I hope that we are all clear that we are talking about a reduction of not 1 million, but 640,000.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening. I said at the outset that we supported the package of measures. However, if we are to have these debates, it is important that we understand the parameters. When a target is announced against which we will measure the success of a package, we should be clear about what that target is. I hope that we are all now clear about the target.
	At the time of the publication of the Green Paper, we and the Select Committee expressed concern that existing claimants should not be written off in the process. The regulatory impact assessment that accompanies the Bill says:
	"It is clear that to reduce the caseload our strategy must focus on improving the rate at which people leave incapacity benefits."
	Conservative Members strongly agree with that statement, but much of the focus of the package is actually on tightening the gateway on to benefit. The Select Committee has expressed the concern that existing claimants are in danger of being left behind.
	It seems to me that there is a wide consensus in the House in support of measures that will help people back into work because that is the best and most effective way of tackling poverty and social exclusion. However, if we all agree on the value of the programme, we cannot accept that those who were specifically referred to and offered hope as long ago as the publication of the 1998 Green Paper should be left behind. The reduction in numbers must therefore represent a genuine increase in off-flow as well as a reduction in the numbers of new claimants. I urge the Minister to give in his winding-up speech a commitment to providing disaggregated targets for those two components of the total reduction to which the Government are committed.
	We also need to understand the Government's thinking about the migration of existing claimants. It has come out during our extensive debate so far that provisions in schedule 4 will allow the migration of existing claimants on to the new system. However, as is consistent with the broad architecture of the Bill, schedule 4 contains largely regulation-making powers. It would therefore be helpful to understand how and when existing claimants will become subject to the new regime.
	We understand that the Government's original intention was that existing claimants would remain on the old incapacity benefit, with work-focused interviews being gradually rolled out. The Secretary of State has now made it clear that there will be a migration process, but, if I have understood it correctly, with existing benefit levels protected. Will the Minister of State be clear, either when he winds up the debate or in an intervention, about what that means? If an existing claimant goes for a new reformed personal capability assessment test and fails it, he would presumably be obliged to claim jobseeker's allowance, but if benefit levels are to be protected, he would get JSA but at the rate of his former incapacity benefit. Is that correct? Would the JSA come with the usual conditionality—the actively seeking work and available for work tests? We need to understand how the proposals would work in practice.
	All the Government announcements and publications that I have seen give the impression that eventually everyone will be included in the system and eventually there will be a requirement to engage in work-related activity, rather than just to complete an action plan and then not necessarily act on it. However, the Government continually enter the caveat "as resources allow". The Secretary of State made it clear that there can be no further roll-out of the programmes until after the comprehensive spending review.
	We agree that it is right to extend the compulsion elements of the programme only when the necessary support is in place and available, but we are talking about a programme that is intended to deliverhuge savings—billions of pounds of savings—to the Exchequer. The Government's analysis, such as it is, says that there is an 8 per cent. increase in off-flow in the pathways pilot areas and that the scheme is very much more than self-financing. The Minister of State said in a press release, I think, last week that the average cost on a pathways programme was £800 and the average saving was about £8,000. So talk about being unable to roll out the programme because of resource constraints does not ring true, or at thevery least it betrays a desperate lack of financial imagination.
	The Green Paper says that pathways will be rolled out in new areas by the private and voluntary sectors, paid for by results and in a way that allows
	"new and innovative approaches to be tested."
	The announced roll-out will use private and voluntary sector providers, but on a much-diluted basis compared with what the Green Paper envisaged. They will not conduct the roll-out in all new areas, they will not be paid wholly by results, and the roll-out will be with a degree of prescription that, frankly, will stifle the most innovative in their ambitions for those programmes.It is almost as if the proposal for roll-out with the private and voluntary sectors has been designed not to maximise the potential benefits that could be squeezed out of using them.
	I have a number of different points to suggest to the Minister. There is not enough transfer of risk in what is being proposed.

John Hutton: I was not planning to intervene, butthe hon. Gentleman's concerns about the roll-out of pathways through the private and voluntary sectors are fundamentally misplaced. We will shortly discuss with the potential new providers of pathways our proposals for how we want the roll-out to proceed. It will certainly not remove the opportunity for innovation, development and flexibility. We want to pursue, and rightly so, the best possible value for money for the taxpayer. If he is prepared to wait a bit longer, he will see from the documentation, which he has asked for and which I am happy for him to see, confirmation that his fears are misplaced.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and he is right that some of the smaller, more specialist providers fear that the model that the Government are rolling out, in which there is a single provider in an area, will squeeze them out of any chance of a role as a prime provider. I think thatthere will be a consolidation, whereby specialist and smaller providers act as sub-contractors in consortium arrangements with larger, perhaps financially stronger, lead providers.

Philip Hammond: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Perhaps I can provide some grounds for optimism by explaining my understanding of what is taking place in the marketplace between lead providers and specialist providers. Providers of specialist services are very much sought out by those who seek to be lead providers. That is because, in presenting their bids to Government, those lead providers need to show that they can access those specialist services, so I hope that the balance of negotiating power is not as lop-sided as my hon. Friend fears.
	We have a unique opportunity to exploit one of the advantages of using private and voluntary sector providers, and allow those providers take on some of the risk, so that there is quicker roll-out, and so that we do not always have to listen to admirable ambitions for programmes that cannot be rolled out until resource constraints allow it. We may be failing to maximise the advantages of engaging the private and voluntary sectors as a result of a prescriptive structure. In particular, I was concerned, as were some potential providers, to learn that it is intended that Jobcentre Plus will, in every case, deliver the first work-focused interview. That proposed model hugely constrains the private and voluntary sectors.
	I understand that the Department for Work and Pensions has a screening tool to screen out those who are closest to the workplace, and that is quite right under value-for-money considerations; it would be frankly barmy to allow private sector contractors to take on people who were about to go back into the workplace, and to collect a large fee. I completely agree that there has to be a way of ensuring that that does not happen, but in a system where work-related activity is not compulsory, and in which even delivering the action plan is not required, the first interview will be the key to success.
	The first interview is the point at which manyprivate and voluntary sector providers believe they can genuinely deliver value—by galvanizing a marginalised individual into seeing, understanding, and grasping his potential for getting back into the workplace and overcoming the disadvantages that his absence from it has caused him. He must be able to see the potential to change his situation. In other words, we must turn the rhetoric of putting the focus on what people can do into a reality. I am not saying for a moment that Jobcentre Plus staff cannot do that; I am saying that the first contact is integral to the whole process. In private and voluntary sector-led areas, the work-focused interview should be carried out by the provider, as an integral part of the process. Otherwise, there is a risk that the model proposed by the Secretary of State will be compromised.

Mark Pritchard: I welcome my hon. Friend's comments about the voluntary and not-for-profit sector. That proposal would be helpful where Jobcentre Plus staff have been laid off, as many thousands have been over the past few months, but where there are still Jobcentre Plus staff, does he agree that they are in the best position to undertake the first interview and assessment, and that there is a role in the job marketfor both providers? That may be a way forward, rather than one or the other, as the Government are suggesting.

Philip Hammond: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As the Chairman of the Select Committee rightly pointed out, there is a temptation to say that there are two functions: one entails gate-keeping the system, and the other relates to the first work-focused interview. There is a sense in which it might be economical to combine them. I am suggesting that that might cause considerable damage to the private sector providers' specific innovative approach.
	When the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform winds up, will he touch on the Transferof Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981? I am concerned by reports that TUPE requirements might be imposed on private and voluntary sector providers of pathways programmes, even though it would be a new programme being rolled out in those areas. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that.
	The Secretary of State is aware of and touched on the concerns that have been expressed about the design of the personal capability assessment, which is central to the process. We are all aware of the problems with the current system. The high success rate on appeal tends to suggest poor decision making in the Department for Work and Pensions. The Green Paper suggests that there are likely to be fewer appeals under the new system, but no indication is given of how we will achieve that step change in the quality of decision making following a more complicated assessment. It will be interesting to hear whether the Minister has any idea how we will get the number of appeals down. Will that be through better decision making or through a process change that will make it more difficult for people to appeal?
	I should like to ask the Minister about the single interview. My understanding—I am happy to be corrected if it is wrong—is that the personal capability assessment, the basic assessment of a person's ability and whether it is reasonable to expect them to work, and the capability for work test, the test to establish whether it is reasonable to expect them to engage in work-focused activity, and possibly the work-focused health assessment for those in the non-support group as well, will all be carried out at the same time. Concerns have been expressed by some providers that there will be perverse incentives for the individual going to a single interview that deals with those three very different things.
	I understand that it is the intention to pilot the new personal capability assessments, and I assume that that will be a piloting of the test itself within the framework of the existing benefit structure before the ESA is introduced. The explanatory notes suggest that there will be piloting, but I am happy to be corrected if that is not the case.
	One of the most important topics of the Green Paper was early intervention. The Green Paper referred to interventions in the GP's surgery and during the statutory sick pay period. The Opposition believe strongly that there is a need for early intervention. What was a pure test of medical condition has often become confused, with different standards being applied and different factors taken into account by different GPs. The Green Paper made proposals for changes to statutory sick pay and the Government were right to abandon the idea of scrapping the three-day rule, but the focus on on-flow will be incomplete if SSP is ignored.
	There is nothing in the Bill about SSP, but that may be because it does not require primary legislation. I urge the Secretary of State not to ignore this aspect. It cannot be right to ignore somebody in work who has become sick or incapacitated for six months before even considering their case and what ought to be done.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) and I made an interesting visit to the Netherlands a couple of months ago—I understand the Minister may do so in due course—to see howthe system operates there, with early and active intervention to help avoid people reaching the stage of long-term sickness.

Philip Hammond: I am grateful to you for that guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is remarkable how quickly we slip into the jargon of our portfolios. The only trouble is that removing all the initials will probably double the length of the debate. JSA is the jobseeker's allowance and ESA is the employment and support allowance.
	If it were possible to get somebody on to the assessment stage of ESA during the statutory sick pay period, that would be sufficiently attractive to the individual for this to be an entirely voluntary programme. I simply want to float this idea to the Minister and ask whether the Department is considering that, and if not, whether he would be prepared to do so, because from all the work that we have done it seems to be the key to addressing the problem, at least for the group of people who go from work on to long-term incapacity payments.
	Many other issues have been raised during the course of the consultation, and they will be probed more fully in Committee. However, I have a couple of other questions to put to the Minister in relation to part 1. The DWP five-year plan refers to a further conditional payment for fulfilment of action plans. That seems to have been dropped in favour of work-related activity, which the notes explicitly say could be different from the action plans. It is difficult to understand the point of making an action plan if people will then be allowed to fulfil their obligations by doing something different from what has been written in the action plan, so perhaps the Minister could explain why that pledgehas been dropped. I make no apology for having concentrated on the employment and support allowance and the pathways to work programme.
	The Green Paper made a clear commitment to getting 300,000 lone parents and a million older people back into work. There is nothing specific in the Bill about achieving those targets, and there may not need to be because they may not need legislation, or the legislation may exist elsewhere. We strongly support the proposals, but there is a need for employer education and a change in some employer attitudes. My point in raising that at this stage is to say that while that may not need primary legislation in a DWP Bill, I hope that the DWP is prepared to act as lead supporter for the initiative in government. I am shocked that private and voluntary sector providers of up and running programmes universally say that placing people with the public sector is much more difficult than placing people with the private sector. The Government, as the largest employer in the country, should aspire to lead from the front and be the most flexible and receptive employer to the particular needs of people coming off incapacity benefit, older workers wanting to work flexibly and part time, and lone parents with particular requirements for a particular kind of flexibility in their working life, if they are to get back into work.
	The changes to housing benefit fall into two parts, the first being greater tenant engagement in achieving value for money. No one could possibly disagree with that. That is a sensible and unbureaucratic way of trying to give people some real responsibility for the consequences of their decisions, and some benefit from making the most appropriate decisions.
	The second part is the direct payment of rent, and I have some reservations about the wisdom of going down that route. The theory that the Secretary of State outlined is unimpeachable: giving people greater responsibility must in general be a good thing. But housing benefit payments will often be a very significant part of a person's total income, and some at least of the people who receive those direct payments will succumb, either to temptation or to pressing alternative need, and the consequence will be that they get into debt, into rent arrears, and ultimately perhaps face eviction. The Secretary of State says that the evidence from the pilots does not suggest that, and I know that the full results of the pilots will be published in due course, but what he says is so counterintuitive, and everybody involved in dealing with housing benefit tenants in the housing markets is so surprised by that outcome, that we need to do some more work on that area.
	On Friday, I visited a homeless drop-in centre in Chester and I asked how many of the people who were being referred on to hostel accommodation were there as a result of having got into rent arrears and having been evicted from private accommodation. The answer was about 50 per cent. one way or another. The manager of that centre gave me an unequivocal assurance that the numbers would go up if a significant number of her clients were to receive direct payment of benefits. I know that there is a provision for local housing authorities to identify people who are at risk and not to make the payments direct to them, but the Minister will know that the guidance notes suggest that local authorities should not in any way be proactive in seeking out people who may be vulnerable in that way, so there is a real problem there that needs to be considered further. It is not a dogmatic point. There is a clear consensus that if we can give people responsibility, we should, but surely to goodness, not at the expense of them getting into rent arrears and debt, and facing possible eviction.
	When the Minister winds up, will he confirm my understanding that it will not be possible to roll out the new local housing allowances to people who are in existing tenancies? There are practical and technical reasons for that. There is something of a double standard in not rolling out these arrangements to the social sector, and in particular to local authority tenants, where the landlord would be both the payer of the benefit and the receiver of the rent. From a basic economics point of view, there must inevitably be a reaction by landlords to the creation of greater risk for them in the marketplace. If a landlord who has been used to receiving a rent cheque reliably once a fortnight from a local authority, virtually a gilt-edged payment, is now to be invited to receive the rent from the tenant directly when and as he is able to make that payment, over time a premium will be demanded for taking on such tenants. Again, that will be to the disadvantageof the Exchequer if ultimately a two-tier market is created, and a marketplace that at the moment is regarded as attractive by landlords of housing benefit tenants because of the method of payment becomes an unattractive one with premiums and perhaps higher deposits demanded.
	We remain deeply sceptical about the housing benefit sanctions for antisocial behaviour. We support entirely the taking of the toughest possible stance with those who are guilty of antisocial behaviour, but we have been here before, and the question is being asked whether this is a real threat or just a headline gimmick. If the threat of eviction has failed to change someone's behaviour, will the threat of losing their housing benefit make the difference? The suggestion that has been put to me is that it is most unlikely in those circumstances that the policy would be effective. Therefore, I am open-minded, but at this stage I am sceptical.

Philip Hammond: That is one of the principal concerns. The Secretary of State has addressed that point and is well aware of the concern. He is confident that the arrangements will ensure that that does not happen, although, again, it is not clear how that will be guaranteed.
	I want the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform to clarify one final point in his winding-up speech. At last Monday's Second Reading of the Compensation Bill, the Under-Secretary of Statefor Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), suggested that this Bill might be an appropriate place to address issues in respect of asbestos-related diseases that had arisen in the debate on that Bill, which would go beyond what is already in clauses 55 and 56. It would help if the Minister were to tell us whether the Government intend to go further in that area in this Bill or whether the Under-Secretary did not intend to give that hint.
	We support the Bill's key objectives to get 1 million people off incapacity benefit and 300,000 lone parents and 1 million older workers back into the workplace. We recognise that that is an enormously complex area and that the detail of the Bill will need to be scrutinised along with the detail of the supporting programme and the draft regulations, which will be laid in due course.
	We believe that the laudable objective of tackling poverty and social exclusion by reintegrating people into the work force through an increase in off-flow will most quickly be achieved by a greater transfer of risk to the private and voluntary sector, thus overcoming the resource constraints, which hon. Members have mentioned, and allowing the benefits to flow as widely and as quickly as possible. Coupled with that, we believe that there needs to be a new focus on early intervention during the statutory sick pay period to try to ensure that people in work stay in the work force, even where their current work is no longer appropriate for them.
	I have not addressed many specific concerns whichI know that other hon. Members will raise in the debate. We will listen carefully to what is said and genuinely look forward to a constructive experience in Committee. We will certainly not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill tonight, so it can go forward in Committee.

Hugh Bayley: Since 1997, Labour's macro-economic policies, support for flexible labour markets and welfare to work incentives have guaranteed faster growth in this country than across the EU as a whole, created 2.5 million additional jobs and reduced employment to less than 1 million. That success has brought tangible improvements to the welfare of millions of employees and their families, but those improvements have not been shared by sick and disabled people of working age.
	In my intervention on the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), I mentioned that the number of people of working age who were not working and who were claimingill-health benefits quadrupled when his party was in power. Labour's achievement has been to stabilise those figures. In our first term, the number of people on incapacity benefit decreased marginally from2.4 million to 2.263 million. In the second term, the figure rose marginally, but it was still slightly belowthe level that we inherited when we came to power. However, it is clear that stabilising the figures is not enough. More needs to be done and I therefore welcome the Bill.
	I was the Minister responsible for disability benefits when the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 was before the House. I do not need to remind hon. Members who were in the House at the time that the Bill had a rocky ride.

Hugh Bayley: The hon. Lady should not pick among the figures. Any rise is a concern, and any reduction—there have been reductions among other age groups—is a benefit. The demonstrable difference between the Labour party's time in power and when the Conservative party was in power is that the number of people claiming incapacity benefit quadrupled under the Conservatives. Overall, the Labour Government have stabilised the figures, but we need to change that and get the numbers down. When the Conservative party came to power, 600,000 people were on invalidity benefit, so it must be possible to have fewer than2.4 million people on incapacity benefit now.
	When the 1999 Act was before the House, two points attracted criticism. The first concerned the changes to the contribution conditions for incapacity benefit and the second concerned the reduction in the value of incapacity benefit for those claimants who had occupational pensions. The Government responded to those criticisms by amending the legislation, but the controversy drew attention away from the Government strategy to increase benefits for severely disabled people who could not work and to start to provide support for people on incapacity benefit to return to work through the new deal for disabled people.
	As many hon. Members have acknowledged, the Government have set an ambitious target to reduce by 1 million the number of people claiming incapacity benefit by enabling those people to get back into work. Having set such an ambitious target, I do not want the Government to make the same mistake now as we did in 1999 by giving the impression of narrowing the eligibility gateway to incapacity benefit instead of enabling people to overcome the limitations imposed by illness or disability in order to remain in work or to return to work.
	The Government have demonstrated through the new deal for disabled people and, more recently, through pathways to work that, with appropriate help and support, people on incapacity benefit can return to work and, importantly, cope with work when they get there. Simply enabling people to get a job is not enough, because one must give them support to enable them to make a success of their jobs. Through the new deals, some 75,000 disabled people have come off incapacity benefits and returned to work.
	In the UK, we reap the benefits of a flexible labour market so far as overall employment is concerned, but we still have an inflexible labour market when it comes to employment opportunities for sick and disabled people. Compared with other OECD countries, we have an acute shortage of occupational health services. We also have a rigid culture among both employers and employees that either one is well and working or oneis limited by illness or disability, and off work temporarily or permanently.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) said, far too many GPs still sign sick notes without recognising the cost or that work, perhaps with reduced hours or changed responsibilities, may aid recovery. We must ensure that welfare forms an important part of GPs' initial training and postgraduate education. Perhaps we should examine ways to reward GPs who use sick notes wisely in the same way as we reward GPs who prescribe rationally and wisely.

Hugh Bayley: My hon. Friend raises an important point. When I became the Minister with those responsibilities, there was no specific training in disability assessment for such doctors. The Royal College of Physicians introduced a postgraduate diploma in disability assessment medicine to train them and it was intended to ensure over time that all doctors working for the Department for Work and Pensions would be trained in disability management. That is an extremely important part of the package.
	There is a shortage of vocational rehabilitation services, including medical and psychological services and practical help with overcoming functional impairments. A study in 14 OECD countries, "Transforming Disability into Ability", which was published in 2003, compared the number of people who each year go through vocational rehabilitation with the number flowing on to long-term incapacity benefits. In Norway, Denmark and Korea, more people get access to vocational rehabilitation than go onto incapacity benefits. In Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States, about 50 per cent. of the number who go on to incapacity benefits get access to rehabilitation services. In Switzerland, Australia and Portugal, the figure is some 20 to 30 per cent. In the UK, it is still less than 5 per cent. We are second lowest of the 14 OECD states in the study.
	More revealingly, the study calculated that spending on vocational rehabilitation as a percentage of spending on disability benefits varies enormously. In Norway, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Australia and Belgium, spending on rehabilitation is between 70 and 100 per cent. of spending on incapacity benefits. In Denmark, Korea and the United States, the figure is about 50 per cent. In the UK, along with Poland, Austria and the Netherlands, we spend less than 20 per cent. of the amount spent on benefits for long-term sick and disabled people on rehabilitation. It is therefore not surprising that fewer people are rehabilitated in the UK or that the number of incapacity benefit claimants here is higher than the number of people claiming similar benefits in most other OECD countries. It is important to complement the measures in the Bill by substantially increasing the resources available for vocational rehabilitation. That would gain widespread support from organisations representing disabled people.
	Within the national health service, there has been a substantial increase in resources for rehabilitation. However, its priority is to rehabilitate hospital patients to the point at which it is possible to discharge them so that they may return home, and not necessarily to continue the rehabilitation to the point where they can return to work. The NHS needs to earmark more resources for vocational rehabilitation.
	The Government should consider creating financial incentives to reward successful cases of rehabilitation. As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, huge savings accrue to the DWP and the Government when people come off incapacity benefit. Those savings should be recycled to pay for more people to be rehabilitated.
	There are lessons to be learned from abroad, although not necessarily from the Netherlands, where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) pointed out, there is an incentive for employers to rehabilitate their staff because they carry the cost of somebody being off work for the first two years of absence. That is not the situation in this country. We could perhaps learn a better lesson from Germany or Switzerland, where, under the Bismarck insurance scheme, employers pay into a common fund that gives cover for health, rehabilitation and pensions. The German phrase for such funds is "Rehabilitation vor Rente"—"rehabilitation before pension". Those insurance funds have an incentive to rehabilitate, because the person then goes back to work and starts paying contributions again. If the scheme fails to rehabilitate, it ends up paying a pension for life.
	There have been similar experiments in Sweden, where pilots have merged benefits and health budgets at local level to pass benefits savings on to health care providers when rehabilitation successfully gets people back to work. I should like our Government to adopt a similar approach. Perhaps a simple way to pilot it would be to give a health and vocational rehabilitation purchasing budget to the managers of the pathways into work pilots. If the NHS does not have the incentive to rehabilitate to the point at which people get back to work, we need to create an incentive for the DWP to reap the financial benefits when somebody is successfully rehabilitated and returned to work.
	When the Conservatives were in power and unemployment broke the 3 million barrier for the second time, a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer said that, sadly, there was no alternative. The record of this Labour Government in their first two terms has shown that there is an alternative. For fit people of working age, unemployment has fallen dramatically to fewer than 1 million. That is something that this Labour Government will be remembered for. The challenge for the third term is to show that there is an alternative for people on long-term sickness and incapacity benefits. The Bill shows the way forward, but it needs to be complemented by greater investment in rehabilitation services.

Danny Alexander: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley). I agree with the stress that he puts on the need for more emphasis on rehabilitation in the training of doctors and a greater sense of awareness, particularly among GPs, of the importance of work and occupational health as a route to dealing with medical conditions. The medical practice in Camden in north London where the idea of having an employment adviser within the practice has been piloted has received visits from all the Front Benchers present, and it is probably getting sick of politicians trooping through the place. The lesson to be learned is that such a measure can have a great deal of success in helping people back to work, as well as reducing medical bills.
	This debate has been delayed for far too long. The fact that more than 2.5 million people remain on incapacity benefit is unacceptable, and it is a disgrace that that group has been so long neglected by Governments of both parties.
	The Minister will be pleased to hear that we strongly agree with the principles behind this reform—principally, that society should play a much more active role in enabling the sick and disabled to take the opportunities afforded by participation in the labour market. That objective is vital not only for the individuals concerned but for society as a whole. As has been said, work is the best route out of poverty, and we all benefit, as a society, from higher levels of economic activity.
	While supporting the principle of welfare reform and many of the measures in the Bill, we are concerned because the Government's proposals are short on detail, because there is a shortage of funding in some respects, and because they rely for delivery on a Department that is under massive pressure. Liberals have long believed that freedom is curtailed by poverty and disadvantage. Today, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) again made tackling poverty a top priority for Liberal Democrats. Welfare reform is central to that objective.
	Despite the long wait, the Bill gives every impression of being rushed in some respects. Huge chunks of important policy detail are relegated to secondary legislation, and by leaving Second Reading until just before the recess, the Minister gives himself time to work out the detail in many of those areas. The carry-over procedure, which will be the subject of a later motion, was neither designed as a general catch-all to allow Departments to delay legislation nor to apply to Bills that had not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. If the carry-over motion is to have all-party support—it was intended that such motions should—the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform must provide a specific justification for using it in the case that we are considering. I hope that he will do that in his winding-up speech.
	I hope that the Minister can also give a clear assurance, linked to my previous point, that sufficient time will be allocated in Committee to allow full scrutiny of the Bill's important provisions. That will require the Government to publish in draft the key statutory instruments—the Minister undertook to do that in answer to oral questions—but I hope that he will include those that deal with the level of benefit, rules of entitlement to benefit, the capability assessment and the other proposed medical assessments, conditionality, the housing benefit reform and sanctions.
	The Bill proposes a framework of additional responsibilities for claimants, but that can be faironly if the state and employers take their share of responsibility. As the Disability Rights Commission said:
	"In return for effective opportunities and support, we believe it is reasonable to expect more people to move towards work. Without effective opportunities and support, it is not reasonable to expect greater responsibilities of claimants."
	The evaluation of pathways to work shows that the scheme has markedly improved employment outcomes. It incorporates the individually focused approach that Liberal Democrats have long advocated, and we welcome its success. However, unless the roll-out of the scheme is properly funded and coherently planned, I have grave concerns about whether it can fulfilall the expectations. The Government have allocated £360 million, as the Secretary of State said, to rolling out pathways to work. However, we still do not know exactly how much of the figure will be spent on doing that. Will the Minister give us more detail today? Will he tell us how much money will be spent on the new computer system needed to administer the new employment and support allowance benefit?
	Even if all the £360 million were spent on rolling out pathways to work, our calculations, based on the amounts that have been spent in the pilot areas, suggest that the figure is more than £250 million short simply for dealing with the needs of new claimants. If the objective were to support all eligible claimants, the welfare black hole would be even greater. Giventhe cuts at Jobcentre Plus, it is also unclear whether there will be sufficient well-trained personal advisers, let alone extra resources from the Treasury, to deliver the scheme.
	Although the Secretary of State did not mention the matter, the newspapers report that the Government have tacitly admitted that the funds are inadequate by suggesting that the support through pathways to work should be targeted at those with children. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the Government's intention?
	The Government have made it clear that they want to target pathways resources in other ways. For example, the city strategy is a welcome attempt to tackle concentrations of incapacity benefit claims by joining up resources in specific cities. However, there is a worrying neglect of the challenging issue of helping claimants in rural and remote areas back to work, not to mention the pockets of deprivation found in rural towns and villages. I hope that the Minister can deal with that point, which was also made in an earlier intervention.
	It is worth pointing out that the success of pathways to work has not been even for all groups. The Department-funded evaluation, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies carried out, found no statistically significant improvement for people with mental ill health as the primary reason for their claim. Age Concern said that the scheme had been much less successful for the over-50s. Better support for both groups is vital if welfare reform is to be a success.
	The voluntary and private sectors can be highly successful in getting people back to work. In some ways and some places, they have been more successful than Jobcentre Plus. I highlight the work of the SHIRLIE project in Inverness, in my constituency. It helps especially those with learning disabilities back to work. The working neighbourhoods project in Parkhead in Glasgow has received several visits from politicians, but has also been successful in targeting not only those on incapacity benefit but a range of disadvantaged groups, through one joined-up project.
	However, it is important to ask how the experience of the voluntary sector will be used throughout the country. The current plan is a bit of a dog's breakfast, with Jobcentre Plus delivering 40 per cent. of provision and the voluntary and private sectors being used for the remaining 60 per cent. If the voluntary sector is as effective as the Government say it is—we agree about that—why will their expertise not be on offer throughout the country?
	Work-related activity must reflect the nature of a person's impairment. Specialist as well as more local providers should therefore be contracted to help specific client groups. There should not simply be big contracts with big providers.
	In dealing with the needs of people with mental health problems, we need to ensure that there are enough trained therapists throughout the UK, as Lord Layard, for example, proposed. Given the five-year training for many of those roles, what plans have the Government to train people to fill the roles that will be needed if welfare-to-work support is to be properly available for people whose first reason for claiming benefit is mental ill health?
	In proposing the new employment and support allowance, the Government have missed an opportunity to simplify our enormously complex benefits system. They have also missed an opportunity to tackle the poverty and low income traps that remain far too prevalent in the benefit system, not least in the tapers for housing benefit, council tax benefit and income disregards. There is an opportunity to unify the system. The income disregard is currently a great deal smaller than that for incapacity benefit. That means that although the income disregard for incapacity benefit may encourage people to try out work for a few hours a week, they then get caught in the housing benefit trap, which leads to their losing benefit and acts as a strong disincentive to taking work.
	Will those who receive the income-related employment and support allowance, who would previously probably have been entitled to income support, also be entitled to passported benefits—for example, free NHS prescriptions and dental treatment, free school meals, funeral expenses and so on? That is important for many claimants. Unless the Minister can clarify the matter, there may cases of the new benefit leaving people worse off.
	Will the Minister also explain why employmentand support allowance, once decided, is not to be backdated to the start of the claim? Not doing that will cause serious problems for some people, especially those who leave work or statutory sick pay, or younger claimants who will be penalised through the reduced rate that applies in the early phase of the benefit.
	I want to consider the proposed medical assessment process. The incapacity benefit medical assessment desperately needs reform. It is subject to persistent concerns about unfairness and poor decision making, especially about mental health. Some 50 per cent. of appeals are granted. A working group is considering improving the assessment, and I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to ensuring that more detail is available before the Committee discusses the matter. It is vital for the Government to get it right. The Royal College of Psychiatrists want rigorous testing and evaluation of the new assessment system for those with mental health conditions. In a written answer, the Minister suggested that some sort of testing, but not a formal piloting process, will take place. Will he explain exactly how the new assessment will be tested?

Danny Alexander: I hear a "yes" from the Conservative Front Bench. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is anticipating an occasion on which he could do exactly that. This is why we need to be careful about what is in the Bill and what is to be introduced through regulations. We remain to be convinced that the safeguards in the system for vulnerable people are sufficient, and a robust system of appeals must also be put in place.
	As the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) rightly said, preparing disabled people for work is not enough if there are no employers ready and willing to take them on. On this point, the Bill and the Green Paper are both lamentably silent. Much more could and should be done to work with employers. For example, the access to work scheme is one of the Government's best kept secrets. According to their own figures, for every person helped through the scheme, there is a £1,400 net benefit to the Exchequer and a £3,000 net benefit to the economy. Yet still the Government fail to promote the scheme adequately, and about 80 per cent. of small employers are unaware of it.
	The Government should use the Bill as an opportunity to invest in the promotion of the access to work scheme, particularly to small businesses, and to make changes to the way in which access to work decisions are made, so that people will know their access to work entitlements before they approach an employer. Also, I hope that the Minister will review the decision to remove the access to work scheme from central Government Departments. The DWP's poor performance in employing disabled people sets a bad example.
	The Employers Forum on Disability has pioneered the auditing of disability standards for employers. The Government should consult on a duty for larger employers to carry out such audits because, as the forum makes clear, this should not be seen as a burden. After all, disabled people are customers, employees, stakeholders, partners and competitors, and 82 per cent. of customers with disabilities surveyed recently have taken their business to a more disability-confident business competitor in the past 12 months. Each year, 25,000 people leave work due to injury and ill health, but this drain of talent is unnecessary. Forty-three per cent. of European workers say that they could work if employers made adjustments.
	I hope that the Minister will also take the opportunity that the Bill provides to pick up the idea proposed in a 10-minute Bill by the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will say much more about that in his speech, and I do not wish to steal his thunder. However, his proposal for rehabilitation leave is a significant one, and it could make a real difference.
	I now turn to the Bill's proposals on housing benefit reform. The proposed local housing allowance has some positive features, but the evaluation has shown that although some benefits have emerged, there have been fewer than had been hoped. The Bill provides welcome simplification of the process of obtaining extended payments when a claimant enters work or has a significant rise in income. The Liberal Democrats welcome the steps to encourage greater financial responsibility. I am pleased that the worries about increases in rent arrears—which the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) mentioned—and about evictions have so far not been realised in the pilots.
	The evidence from the pilots also suggests, however, that the objective of simplifying the administration and reducing administration costs has been undermined because the new vulnerability assessment—which I welcome—is needed to help people who cannot manage direct payments. So the savings that will be made by administering the new benefit will have to be balanced against the increase in administration needed to make the vulnerability assessment work properly.
	There has been a welcome fall in the number of people facing a shortfall in their rents in the pilot areas. However, this depends on how the local housing allowance rates are set. They are set according to broad rental market areas, and are based on the local market rent. Different outcomes can therefore be found in different areas. In Conwy, for example, Shelter found that only 10 per cent. of property was affordable for local housing allowance recipients, whereas the figure was 55 per cent. in Edinburgh. Perhaps rent officers should be guided by the statutory minimum proportion of affordable property in each broad rental market area when establishing those areas. Given the housingand benefit provision duties of councils, it would be reasonable to require the rent service to consult them on the setting of broad rental market area boundaries.
	The pathfinder areas were given significant extra financial resources to provide financial advice and help to those who had not received direct payments of housing benefit before. I hope that the Minister will make it clear that that will continue as the new system is rolled out across all the local authorities, because in many areas, help such as that provided by Citizens Advice was crucial in preventing the short-term drop-off in payments and subsequent rise in arrears and evictions that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge mentioned.
	The Liberal Democrats have always opposed the single room rent, as did the present Secretary of State, and the Prime Minister, when the Conservative party introduced it. It will continue under this Bill, however, in a slightly different form—the shared room rate. While the shared room rate is slightly more generous, the basic unfairness and large rent shortfalls will continue. We will introduce amendments to scrap it, which we hope will have the support of all those who voted against the single room rent when it was introduced in 1996.
	I now turn to the provisions relating to antisocial behaviour. Liberal Democrat Members bow to no one in our determination to deal with antisocial behaviour, as the performance of Liberal Democrat-run local authorities across the country will show.

Karen Buck: I was not aware of that statistic, but it makes perfect sense in the context of what I am saying.
	In my inner-city community and, I suspect, in others, we see a peculiarly compounded set of problems, leading to an extremely complex case load. Some people's first language is not English; some may have physical problems, which may be exacerbated by a range of mental-health problems. Let me return to what was said by the hon. Member for Putney(Justine Greening). The refugee communities in my constituency display all those characteristics, and define the problem very well. They include people with exceptionally high skills, and the level of education among them is significantly higher than that of the general population. Many of them have been victims of torture and have experienced the trauma of exile as well as their underlying conditions; many also have language difficulties. Nevertheless, they could contribute a great deal to the economy if they received the intensive support services that are needed to help them to work.
	Let me give some examples. Ali, who was an architect in Sudan, now has to deal with chronic depression—unsurprisingly—and with damage to his back and legs as a result of torture, but is perfectly capable of working as an architect. The amount of help that could help him to use his qualifications is very limited. Fatima, who was a midwife, is also extremely keen to return to work. She suffers from mental-health problems, depression and back pain. She would be able to return to work, but is frequently sent on skills courses and asked to consider employment in the retail industry. She has neither the training nor the application for that.
	It is not only refugee families that experience such problems. Dennis, whom I saw a few weeks ago, had a high-powered job in an advertising company until he had a nervous breakdown and was accepted as homeless. He is keen to return to work. Unfortunately, he turned down an offer of permanent accommodation because he was nervous about the area. The council then discharged its duty to house him, and now he is homeless on top of all his other problems.
	Historically, we in inner London have not enjoyed anything like the success that welfare programmes have generally achieved in other parts of the country. The new deal has been less successful in inner London, and there has been a much lower take-up of tax credits. A range of excellent programmes, which I strongly support, do not deliver in the area. There is a real danger that that will happen again. If we do not accept the particular complexity of case-load needs and the existence of multiple disadvantages, compounded in many cases by housing problems, we will not be able to deliver the outcomes that we want.
	That is even clearer when seen in the context of the London labour market, where we see a projected continued reduction in the level of entry to the lower-skilled jobs towards which so many claimants are directed in the first instance. If we do not raise our game in terms of the quality of skills training offered to those people, we will find ourselves trying to encourage them to return to a market that no longer exists for them.
	What worries me greatly is that unemployed people, those on income support and, indeed, IB claimants who are anxious to return to the labour market, or at least to be diverted from long-term benefit dependency, are being leapfrogged by globalisation. A wider labour market throughout the south-east of England—and, nowadays, throughout Europe and worldwide—is taking the jobs that are needed by so many of our disadvantaged individuals.
	Let me say a little about housing benefit. TheBill does not refer to the problems experienced by families in temporary accommodation in overcoming disincentives to work. The Department for Work and Pensions is running a small pilot scheme in Newham, "Working Futures", designed to help families paying the high rents that are charged for temporary accommodation and treated as if they were standard social housing rents for the purposes of benefit claims. Why is that a tiny single-borough pilot scheme?
	My borough contains 3,000 households in temporary accommodation, of which 92 per cent. are not in the labour market. That compares with 67 per cent. of all social housing tenants. We can therefore assume that, almost at a stroke, 1,000 households in a single borough could be encouraged into work if their housing benefit were treated differently. As it is, those people are asked to clear a rent of £400 or £450 every week before they can gain any benefits from working. Given the interaction of the tapers, it is no wonder that most people feel that that is simply not worth their while. There are 100,000 families in such accommodation in the country as a whole. We should be bold and sensible, and roll out the pilot scheme as quickly as possible. The Treasury is spending £400 or £450 a week on housing benefit, which is lining the pockets of private landlords and trapping people in benefit dependency.
	I generally welcome the roll-out of the standard housing allowance across the private sector, and strongly welcome the decision not to proceed with its extension into the social sector. The fundamental difference is that most private-sector tenants on housing benefit were already subject to shortfalls between rent and housing benefit. That is not the case in the social rented sector, so there would have been a huge number of losers. It would have been insane to proceed, and I am very pleased that the Government saw sense.
	I worry about the possibility that the localhousing allowance in high-value areas could result in more homelessness. The pilot schemes show a disproportionate impact in different areas. We may find that it works perfectly well in some parts of the country, but leaves us with a headache in others. I hope that we will watch the situation closely.
	I, too, am extremely anxious about the sanctions for antisocial behaviour. I am pleased about the decision not to proceed along the lines proposed in 2003. I acknowledge that there will be pilot schemes, and that the proposal is infinitely better targeted and more carefully drawn up than the original version. I still believe, however, that in what will almost certainly be the majority of cases, because of the profile of families in social housing, families with children will find sanctions locking them further into a downward spiral of homelessness and debt. They simply displace the problem from one form of housing to another, without doing anything fundamental to deal with the problem.
	In that context, I am aware of young children with personality disorders, including autism, whose control over their behaviour is extremely limited, but there is virtually no provision for helping families with such children. They are almost entirely outwith the support system. It is right to do what we can to take such families and individuals into intensive rehabilitation. Sanctions in respect of tenancy have to apply, but I believe that this will not be a productive way forward.
	In summary, it is an excellent Bill with much to commend in it. I hope that it will be strengthened still further by a constructive set of proposals that will take us through Committee. I remain hopeful that in respect of one or two aspects of the Bill, there is still time for a rethink.

Angela Browning: I would like to focus on the part of the Bill that deals with incapacity benefit and on the problem of getting people with disabilities into work. A broad range of charities and organisations welcome and support the Bill, but that support is not unqualified. Those organisations and I have expressed many caveats about which we are concerned.
	In response to the Green Paper, I submitted a document on the specific subject of Asperger's syndrome and how to help adult sufferers of it into work. I am grateful that the Secretary of State met me in March to discuss that paper; and that, last week, the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform met me and a representative from the National Autistic Society, who runs the Prospect employment scheme. We discussed how best to interface with the Government's plans, and particularly how best to get this group of people into work.
	Why Asperger's syndrome? There are reckoned to be about 332,000 people of working age who have an autistic spectrum disorder and are thought to be of average or above average intelligence. Of those who hold down a job, however, only 6 per cent. are in paid employment and among the high functioning end of the spectrum, the Asperger's group, only 12 per cent. That shows how low the figures are, yet we are talking about a group of people who are capable of education, in some cases right through to degree level.
	When I try to describe Asperger's syndrome to people, I try to get the mix right and it sometimes sounds a bit quirky. If we think back to the second world war and those highly intelligent people who worked at Bletchley Park and cracked the codes, quite a high percentage are reckoned to have had Asperger's. That tells us the level of expertise and intelligence that those with the syndrome may have. At the same time, such people can be difficult to place in work. Why? It is not because they are learning disabled in the recognised sense of having an IQ of under 70, but because autism often presents problems of communication and social interaction and difficulties associated with ritualistic behaviour. That, despite their educational and training experience, makes them least well equipped for today's workplace. Even some of the most basic jobs on offer today demand good, socially interactive skills. Employers often want people who are good team players with good communication skills. Even stacking shelves in a supermarket demands being able to communicate with customers, to be polite, personally to direct customers to where the soap powder is stocked and so forth. Social skills are a core part of just about every job advert and they are likely to be important in the interview.
	Placing those with Asperger's in work thus needs expertise. Those trying to help them must understand the condition from which those people suffer and must be able to develop their work-ready skills. As we described to the Minister last week, the Prospect scheme run by National Autistic Society could be a valuable resource for the Government.
	I want to pick up a point that others, includingmy hon. Friend the Member for Runnymedeand Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), have already mentioned—the fact that what we are talking about is not a cheap option. It is not something that can be read up in a textbook or people briefed about for a few hours on a training course. It is not possible to learn how to help those people on that basis.
	From my own experience of working with and advising adults with Asperger's, I am aware of current problems. Some are already engaged in the process of trying to get into employment through job centres and other organisations, but the weakness is that much more time needs to be spent on developing their skills in preparing them for interviews or preparing a CV, for example. All of that is pretty routine, but the vast majority really need someone present with them during the interview process. That means that the employer as well as the potential employee need to be coached and prepared for the interview to come. That is necessary if people with Asperger's are to get a fair chance to be considered for a vacancy on the same basis as everyone else.
	All too often—this is the key weakness—all the different stages are gone through with all the boxes ticked on job preparation, job coaching and preparing for the interview, but the problem is that those people seem to be left on their own to find the job in the first place. They are almost abandoned at that point. Finding the job is one of the hardest parts of the whole process, because in the main, we are talking about people who have great difficulty, if it is not within their own experience, in imagining what a job would be like. I recall one young man who repeatedly declared that he wanted to be an astronaut. It was totally unrealistic, but because he had seen it on television and identified what the job was, he felt quite safe and secure in saying that he wanted to be an astronaut. He could relate to that, but the truth is that he would have made an extremely good accountant.
	We know from the people with Asperger's who get into work that they are extremely reliable. As with other conditions, however, such as mental health problems or learning disabilities, they present certain challenges from the employer's point of view. Sometimes they take up management time once they are in post. That is why helping them into a sustainable job involves more than just helping them to find the job or getting them through the interview process. It is not about having someone to do the job for them—they can do it themselves—but having someone to troubleshoot on their behalf once they are accepted into the workplace. Occasionally, things can happen that are quite difficult for the staff to deal with, but if someone comes in to troubleshoot the situation, it is much easier to solve the problem so that the individual can stay in the job.
	As to how this particular group can benefit from the changes that the Government have outlined in the Bill and presented today, I am reassured that Ministers are now well versed about this condition and have a good understanding of what is needed. The challenge is whether they can procure enough specialist advice around the country to help that group of people access opportunities for work along with everyone else. The vast majority are desperate to work. Some may realistically be able to sustain their attention span only for part-time work, but whether it is just a few hours a week, whether it is part-time or full-time, those people deserve the same chance as everyone else.
	I welcome the Bill, which I view as a huge opportunity and step forward, so long as the Government are able to provide the necessary specialist support. That will require resources, but we discussed with Ministers how specialist provision—it is already there, albeit through limited providers—can help us to roll out help nationally. We should be able to ensure that within any county, district or area, however divided up, at least one disability employment adviser is peripatetic. If job centres knew that, perhaps on a Wednesday afternoon, the person who specialised in Asperger's syndrome would be available in the region, it would be a huge step forward in helping those people into work.
	I shall repeat one or two of the things that I included in the paper that I submitted to the Government, because they are important if the policy is to be successful. The worst thing that we can do is to set people up to fail. The impact on their mental well-being if they keep on trying and nothing happens cannot be overstated. However the Government approach that group, right from the beginning, they must distinguish those who cannot work from those who can, however limited the work, because for some people within that definition, as with those who have mental health conditions or learning disabilities, it would be grossly unfair to put them through the process of getting into paid work when that might not be the answer. They might, of course, benefit from doing voluntary work to which they do not have access now, so I would not want any of them to be excluded—to use the Minister's words—but identifying who can and who cannot benefit will be very important.
	Clear information is needed on what happens to people who go through the process, but for whom work ultimately fails. We must know how we will pick up the pieces, or we will leave behind more damage than we started out with. Some thought must be given to what happens if work fails, although I hope that that would involve only a small minority of people.

Roger Berry: I would not suggest that there is never a net cost, but the fact is that enormous benefits come from programmes of this kind. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of York pointed out, the UK's record in respect of spending on labour market programmes for disabled people is pitifully poor.The figure that I have in mind is a telling one: we spend 0.02 per cent. of national income—a fifth of the average European Union spend—on work-related programmes for disabled people. We can do better.
	There is another issue that I must again raise. I know that the Government are now spending £62 million on access to work. That programme is one of the best kept secrets; 75 per cent. of employers have never heard of it, but those who have heard of it know how important it is—and many Members know constituents who have benefited enormously from it. When the Department for Work and Pensions writes to me that, for every£1 million spent, the Treasury gets back £1.7 million, it makes me ask: can I be assured that the DWP and the Treasury have ongoing discussions to ensure that access to work gets more money? I am deeply concerned at the announcement that that initiative will no longer be available for Government Departments. I know that it has already ceased to be available in the DWP. Before the Government go ahead with that decision, I urge them to provide evidence that it will not have a harmful effect. It is perfectly reasonable to say that Government Departments have large budgets—

Greg Hands: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Memberfor Kingswood (Roger Berry), who made a characteristically passionate and well-informed speech. I want to make a few brief remarks about cancer patients, and others facing long-term illness, before moving on to consider the housing benefit proposals in some detail and the proposal to introduce the new local housing allowance.
	On cancer patients and their families, carers and supporters, I have in my constituency both Macmillan Cancer Support and CLIC Sargent, with which I do quite a lot of work on ways to reduce the non-medical costs of cancer and long-term care. There are some depressing statistics. In respect of those aged 55 or less, seven out of 10 households with a member suffering from cancer suffer a loss of income, with the average income fall being in the region of 50 per cent. I applaud the campaigns to reduce those costs, which are very expensive, especially in London, and include parking fees and congestion charging, as well as other medical expenses. We need to look closely at lightening the load on cancer patients and those close to them.
	I turn to housing benefit and the new local housing allowance. Housing benefit is an important benefit and it is vital to scrutinise it and the proposed changes properly. It is currently paid to 4 million households in the UK——mainly low-income tenants but also people of working age and pensioners. Only 20 per cent. of those 4 million live in privately rented properties—the primary sector under consideration in this Bill—and a key test for the future of these regulations will be when and if they are applied to social housing.
	The gist of the new local housing allowance scheme is that it pays a flat rate that varies only according to the size of the family and the area in which the tenant or household live. That contrasts with the current system, under which housing benefit is related to the total rent of a house or flat. Under the new LHA system, tenants have a chance to shop around for cheaper property and pocket the difference, or to trade up and make up the extra rent themselves. As I understand it, that scheme will be introduced only for future tenants and that existing ones will, in effect, be "grandfathered", at least for the time being.
	The Bill also allows benefit reduction for those who commit antisocial behaviour and who refuse help in order to reform their behaviour. I shall not dwell on the idea for too long, but it has potential. As currently expressed, the scheme will kick in only after eviction and put the onus merely on going on a rehabilitation course. We could explore that idea further. In my constituency, too many tenants and residents have suffered for too long from the effects of antisocial behaviour, and they have seen little action from the outgoing Labour council in the past 20 years to combat the problems. The new Conservative council in Hammersmith and Fulham is certainly taking such problems very seriously.
	In general, I greatly support initiatives to help those who are less well off in what are otherwise prosperous areas—a typical situation in large parts of inner London, including Regent's Park and Kensington, North, to which reference was made earlier. For example, I took part in the launch of the new Hammersmith and Fulham credit union a couple of months ago, which is a scheme designed precisely to help the less well-off in an area that is otherwise superficially very prosperous. However, a constituency such as mine contains many very successful people, as well as many who are struggling. In my view, otherwise wealthy areas that contain a large number of poor people have suffered badly under this Government through, for example, the changes to the index of local deprivation, the capping of council tax benefit at band E over a six-year period, the fixing of funding formulae against London, and so on.
	As a former councillor, I have a lot of experience in dealing with housing benefit cases in my own constituency; in fact, I used to represent tenants at housing benefit tribunals. The "HB regs", as they used to be known, have evolved somewhat since the mid-1990s and have been updated many times, so I had to do a little updating myself before taking part in this debate. But I know from experience that changes to housing benefit need to be properly thought through and carefully piloted, and I certainly welcome the piloting approach that has been taken. Housing benefit has been particularly subject to fraud and poor administration over the years, as witnessed, for example, by problems in London councils during the late 1990s. We need to approach reform with caution, but reform is much needed.

Greg Hands: I agree entirely and in principle that this is a very good reform. I am simply saying that in constituencies such as ours, exactly how we define the median rent level and the area concerned needs to be approached with care.
	We should also consider the potential for arrears. Although the Green Paper highlights the expectation that tenants set up standing orders to pay rent, thereis clearly no compulsion to do so. Moreover, no consideration has been given to how councils might play a part in setting up such arrangements, or to the costs that might be involved to councils in offering services in this area if people get into trouble. In creating individual responsibility, councils might need to have resources to help such people get through the transitional period. I welcome the commitment given at the start of this debate to extending throughout the country the support being made available in the pathfinder projects to help tenants in more difficult and challenging circumstances to make that transition.
	I want to talk about an issue that has not reallybeen touched on this debate—the potential for overcrowding. There is a real risk, which has not been totally borne out by the pathfinder projects, that many tenants will trade down their accommodation, move into smaller premises, take the higher level of local housing allowance, save money on the local allowance by paying less rent than they really should, pocket the difference and use it for something else. Some might say that that is fantastic and that it encourages more responsibility on behalf of that tenant, but if it leads to more overcrowding in places such as inner-city London and my constituency, that could be an unfortunate consequence. I would be grateful for the Minister's views on what sort of protection can be put in place against people who are, in effect, moving to a much smaller property than they should be.
	One of the most interesting aspects of this debate is the potential for extending the provisions to the 80 per cent. of housing benefit recipients who are in social housing. I have two practical concerns. I know that this aspect is not in the Bill, but there is the potential to introduce it. Having spoken to my council, I know that it believes that the local housing allowance would cost more to administer than current arrangements for its council tenants. It also thinks that arrears would probably increase in the social housing sector and that probably some transitional help would be needed for councils.
	I would be interested to see some of the results for the nine pathfinder authorities. Regrettably, we have not yet got the final report from those authorities—I do not think that it is due till the end of the year—to enable us to assess the situation properly. There are some mixed experiences if one compares, say, Lewisham with Conwy, which I suppose is not that surprising when one considers the mix of housing stock and tenants in the two areas. Apparently, in the pathfinder areas, 56 per cent. of landlords said that the new local housing allowance scheme would make them less likely to let to housing benefit tenants due to fear or experience of arrears.
	In answer to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan), I think that we need to start giving people responsibility for their financial futures. Undoubtedly, some tenants will struggle with an incoming payment and outgoing payment when previously the cash flow was effectively hidden from them and managed on their behalf. But surely, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition says repeatedly, we need to start trusting people and getting them less dependent on the state to do everything for them. Let us be bold and back the new local housing allowance.
	In conclusion, we need to support this scheme, but we need to look at perhaps three or four areas where there are concerns. I would like the Minister to address them in his summing up. The first is the potential for mobility, both within an area of inner London and out of inner London into outer London. Secondly, thereis the potential for the overcrowding of tenants tosave money. Thirdly, there is the potential for greater arrears. Finally, there is the potential for greater administration costs, especially if the two schemes are going to be run in tandem, which I think is what the proposal states. Effectively there will be a lot of historic existing tenants on the existing housing benefit system, plus a large group on the new local housing allowance. I hope that the Minister will address those points.
	We should welcome the new local housing allowance. We need to move ahead with caution. The current system is too susceptible to fraud, too complex and destroys individual aspiration. It is time for something better, but we still need a little caution.

Janet Dean: I thank Ministers and officials for the intensive consultation that has taken place over recent weeks. As a member of a number of all-party groups and the chairman of the all-party group on lupus, as well as the all-party autism group, I know how much effort has been put into discussing the proposed reforms with MPs and patient groups. There is widespread support for the proposals in the Bill, which bring a real opportunity to change the way in which we look at disability and work. Although pathways to work has begun to change the culture of the system, employers need to be encouraged to retain and accommodate staff who may become ill or suffer an injury. The system needs to enable people to play as active a part in work as possible. Individuals need to have faith that the process is working for them.
	I agree with the charity Rethink when it refers to people needing
	"support and encouragement rather than negativity and discrimination".
	I believe that the new system will be judged on its ability to focus on individuals' needs. In order to do that, there will need to be increased training for Jobcentre Plus staff and for doctors carrying out capabilities assessments. Although I recognise that, as now, people will be assessed according to how the illness or disability affects them, rather than which condition they have, there is a need for those who interview or examine individuals to have some knowledge of different conditions. They will need to recognise that those who have a learning disability or who are autistic do not need rehabilitation, but, as others have said, may need long-term support in employment or when there are changes in that employment.
	Employees at Jobcentre Plus and personal advisers will need to recognise that many people, especially those with a mental health problem, may have their condition worsened if they are placed under too much pressure. Advisers will need to know that long-term conditions, some of which, such as lupus, are notwell known, will vary between individuals. Indeed, conditions such as lupus do not just affect individuals differently; those who have the condition may feel quite well one day and be confined to their home the next. Some people with lupus have depression, or they may have memory or cognitive problems because of the cerebral involvement of their illness. Those who are assessing and working with those individuals will need to be aware of the varying nature of such conditions. The issue of training is not covered in the Bill and I would be grateful for reassurance that there will be such training in specific impairments, such as autistic spectrum disorders.

Janet Dean: I certainly agree. Indeed, sometimes the person with a particular condition underestimates the problems that they have with it, so having a partner or a carer with them can be of great help.
	Understanding of autism is still lacking among professionals. If the employment and support allowance is to work for people with an autistic spectrum disorder, more training for personal advisers, jobcentre staff and health professionals is essential. A tiered system of training could be developed to ensure that all personal advisers had a basic level of knowledge and could call on people at a regional level for more in-depth knowledge. Any organisations that are in receipt of contracts to work with individuals should also have adequate understanding of the needs of people with different impairments.
	As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) said earlier, about 260,000 of the estimated 330,000 people of working age in the UK with an autistic spectrum disorder are thought to be of average or above average intelligence and yet only 6 per cent. of all people with an autistic spectrum disorder are in full-time paid employment. We need to do better. However, unlike some of the disabilities, once a suitable job is found for someone with an autistic spectrum disorder, it is essential that continuing support is available while that person is in work. Because of difficulties in social interaction and communication, working environments can present many problems. Regular meetings or access to someone to call on can prevent the breakdown of a job and the sense of failure that may follow that.
	That support to individuals in employment is best delivered by specialist agencies that have a deep level of understanding, as well as a commitment to ongoing support. For those with an autistic spectrum disorder, the National Autistic Society's prospects servicehas a proven success record of achieving lasting employment. Several patients' organisations have expressed their concern that contracts are tending to be awarded to larger, less specialised providers who may not be able to provide effective support for individuals with particular needs.
	It will be necessary to monitor closely the categories of those who are found employment and who receive support in that employment. In that respect, there is concern about outcome-based contracts, if that outcome relates to numbers rather than the detailed analysis of those who have received help and are continuing to receive ongoing support. There is a great deal that the voluntary sector can offer in the provision of services. I was particularly interested to hear of the Citizens Advice suggestion that it and other organisations could be involved in the delivery of certain services, such as providing independent financial advice to people who are considering a return to work or advice to employers who need to know about the new benefit structure and their rights and responsibilities to employees with mental or physical health problems. Such use of the voluntary sector would also bring reassurance to those with an illness or disability.
	One area of concern that has been raised by several organisations, and this evening, is that much of the detail of the legislation has been left to regulations. May we have a reassurance that sufficient time willbe allowed for consultation on that detail? The effectiveness and responsiveness of the new system will depend on the detailed application of the legislation.
	Another point of concern is the extension of theuse of sanctions from attendance at interview to involvement in work-related activity, especially since it is suggested that that work-related activity could be changed by a personal adviser at any time. Sanctions should be applied only by qualified staff who understand the medical conditions or disability of the individual who might lose some financial benefit, rather than private or voluntary sector providers. If necessary, reference should be made to a person with greater knowledge of the condition, such as a hospital consultant.
	Care will need to be taken before applying sanctions in all cases. It will be necessary to consider the impact of a person's disability on his or her ability to comply. For example, there must be consideration of whether people with a learning disability can understand what is required of them and whether they receive sufficient support to enable them to comply with the requirement.
	I welcome the Secretary of State's earlier reassurance about those with mental illnesses, but Rethink has concerns about clause 17, whereby people could be disqualified from receiving ESA if their capability of work was reduced through their own misconduct, their failure to take medical advice without good cause, or their failure to observe the prescribed rules of behaviour. Patients with mental health problems might cease medication because of side effects. They could present with unusual behaviour, or might not attend for interview because of their condition.
	People with autism might appear to be not engaging with the process because they have difficulty with social interaction. The difficulty that people with an ASD have with social communication can affect verbal and non-verbal communication, so facial expressions and tones of voice might cause misunderstanding. Along with difficulties with social imagination, which includes planning ahead and the flexibility of thought, those problems make it difficult to acquire and maintain a job. It is important that great care is taken when applying sanctions to those with chronic, long-term conditions that might fluctuate, such as lupus.

Robert Syms: It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, which has been extremely thoughtful and well considered. We have heard from a lot of people who are experts in the field, although I do not pretend to be one of those. I was certainly impressed with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who certainly has great specialist knowledge. She and the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) made very good contributions to the debate.
	I would first like to talk about the antisocial behaviour aspect of the Bill. All of us have met constituents in our surgeries with antisocial neighbours on their estates. We thus write letters to the chief executive of the local council and feel frustrated not only for ourselves, but on behalf of our constituents. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) did us all a great service with his private Member's Billon withdrawing benefit from those who displayed antisocial behaviour. I was initially pleased with the measures in the Bill, but the more I consider them, the more I think that they are rather disappointing.
	The withdrawal of housing benefit is to be a threat after eviction, but I do not think that the power will be used very often. We heard from the Secretary of State earlier that the Government will be sensitive to situations involving children. The power will be used in very few cases. There would be merit in allowing local authorities to use housing benefit as a lever before they reach the point of eviction, largely because that might present the opportunity to modify people's behaviour before they lose their home and their families become homeless.
	The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) made a good point about schemes that local authorities can run to provide rehabilitation and to change people's behaviour. It would be far better to have several sanctions that local authorities could use to improve people's behaviour, rather than the measure in the Bill, which can be used only after an eviction. As we know, an eviction is always an extreme case. I cannot foresee that the sanction would be used in very many cases. I do not understand the logic of the measure, so I hope that my Front-Bench colleagues will examine it in Committee.

Robert Syms: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. My central point about the antisocial behaviour measure is that although it sounds tough, it will not be used very often. If the powers were a little more sweeping, chief executives of local authorities and housing departments would be in a much better position to tackle the problem. The way in which neighbours are dealt with is one of the biggest problems that many of our constituents face.
	I welcome the measures in the Bill on benefit fraud, including the "two strikes and you're out" approach, for which it is sensible to extend the relevant period from three to five years. I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who spoke with great experience about housing benefit and the local housing allowance. Generally speaking, I am in favour of the way in which the Government are going. It is sensible to move towards a more market-related solution, although I understand my hon. Friend's real concerns about how large a region or area is. London has specific problems because great discrepancies can be seen even a few miles apart. I certainly welcome the suggestion of further trials. However, in any sort of use of the welfare state, it is important, when possible, to increase the amount of personal responsibility that people have. We should not always assume that people have to rely on the state to do everything for the outcomes that they want.
	When I first read the figures for incapacity benefit, I was rather shocked that 2.71 million people, or 8 per cent. of the working age population, are on incapacity benefit and that more than half those people had been on it for more than five years. I was also a little shocked to find that 40 per cent. of those people had mental or behavioural problems, because that is an extremely high figure. I also noted that the number of young people on incapacity benefit has gone up by 71 per cent. There is evidently a big problem.
	As we have heard throughout the debate, if we are to tackle poverty and social exclusion, and deal with child poverty in particular, we must bite the bullet by tackling incapacity benefit and doing our best to get as many people as possible into the work force. The Government have set quite an ambitious target, whether the figure is 1 million or the 640,000 that my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) cited, but until we know all the details—problems with draft regulations have been mentioned—it is difficult to be too specific about several aspects of the Bill.
	Early intervention is important. There has been little mention of the national health service, but we all know that some people on incapacity benefit are waiting for operations. They are thus waiting for the NHS to assist them by putting them in a position in which they can go back to work—so it is important to have joined-up government.
	I welcome the fact that the Government are allowing private, voluntary or not-for-profit organisations to deliver some of the pathway projects, although I understand the concerns raised by my hon. Friend about their not being given enough latitude to bring innovation into the system. That is one thing that the private and voluntary sector can do.
	There is an ambitious programme. According to the Library, even Poole has 3,200 people on incapacity benefit—about 6 per cent. of the working age population. That is a lot of people. If the Government's target is to be met, about 1,000 people will have to move from incapacity benefit into work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, it is important that to do the assessment, there is a range of people who understand the problems that people have. With mental difficulties and behavioural problems, it is important that niche services are provided, so that we get it right.
	As was mentioned earlier, the problem is that if we do not get it right, there are consequences both for the individuals if they go back into work and do not stick a particular course, and for employers. If employers take on someone with a particular problem and it works out, they may go back and take on a second, third or fourth person. However, if it does not work out, the whole scheme may fail. It is important that we do not just focus on individuals. We also have to focus on employers and educate them. Clearly, if we are to mobilise a lot of people on incapacity benefit—many of them have specific problems, and niche problems—it will be a big job to educate employers on how to deal with that and to get the best out of them.
	Broadly, I welcome the Government's direction. Much will depend on the details, and the detail in regulation. I am sure that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will test many of the propositions in Committee. There is a degree of consensus, and it is important that we give this large number of people the right and the opportunity to get back into work, because of the impact that it will have on their lives, the state of their mental health and so on. As we all know, work is important. It must be very difficult for those who are denied it who feel that they have been sentenced to many years on benefit, without the tools to get back into work and to join in many of the things that the rest of us who have worthwhile jobs do.

Anne Begg: I welcome the tone of the debate on both sides of the House. It has been a positive discussion. That reflects the briefing papers that I received—perhaps other hon. Members were also deluged by them—from various organisations with an interest in welfare reform. There has been a general welcome for the principles of the Bill, although inevitably there was concern about the detail.
	I want to concentrate on the first half of the Bill, which deals with disability and getting people with disabilities and ill health back into the workplace. Many other things in the Bill are also important, such as provisions covering lone parents, people over 50 and housing benefit. I am afraid that I do not have the expertise in housing benefit that my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North(Ms Buck) has. She said that she had an unhealthy interest in housing benefit. I am glad to say that I do not, but I do know that it is very important to many of our constituents. They are often in a benefits trap because of housing benefit. That is a particular problem for those in the private rented sector. Their rent is so high that they cannot afford to get into work, but they cannot get a council house because, although their housing provision is extremely expensive, there is nothing wrong with it and the council think that they are adequately housed. However, the problems that my constituents face are nothing compared with those that the constituents of London MPs must face. I do not know how people can afford to live and work in London, because of the huge cost of housing.
	It is important that the debate has been couched in the tone that has been used today. It has taken a long time for us to get to this stage. I remember a journalist at the last Queen's Speech saying that the Government would have to face down their rebels on welfare reform and that there would be huge opposition to it. Instead, we have discovered that there is no major opposition on either side of the House. That is a tribute to officials and Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions, who have managed to change the tone of the debate by talking about welfare reform as a positive thing that will be good for people. They have said that it needs to be done, and that as a result, people will be better off.
	Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), I have spoken to disabled people and they have been apprehensive about what reform means. MPs take reform to mean change for the better, but in the collective memory of many disabled people, "reform", "welfare reform" and "benefit reform" have meant changes that have resulted in them being worse off, with a worse service and less money from the Government. It has taken a long time to change their perception and to build up trust in the Government's actions as being something to their benefit, not to their detriment.
	One way in which the Government have done that is by having examples of good practice that they can point to. Those examples are not only in the pathways to work projects. Many hon. Members mentioned specific programmes in their constituencies which have worked. Aberdeen Foyer has been incredibly successful in dealing with predominantly young people who live on the margins of society and who are often recovering drug addicts. It has delivered a number of welfare-to-work programmes, including progress to work and getting people to the job-ready stage, capable of doing a work-focused interview and getting into work. The examples exist to show that such success is possible. Whether it is down to DWP staff themselves, the third sector or, in some cases—this is particularly true in Glasgow—the private sector, there are models that work. That has begun to allay some of the fears of many disabled people.
	It is also important that reform is not aboutsaving money. Although ultimately it should save the Government money—partly because when people get off benefit and into work they will contribute to the Exchequer in the form of paying taxes, rather than taking from it—that is always a side issue. It must never be the central issue for any kind of welfare reform. The aim is to make welfare work for people, and for it not to be a barrier.
	One of the big disincentives to work has been the welfare system itself. We talk about the different barriers that disabled people face, but disability or ill health is often not the primary barrier to disabled people getting into work. Sometimes that is three, four or five strands down the list. Child care and travel to work may be bigger barriers than a disability. There is no doubt, however, that the welfare system is one of the main barriers to work. That cannot be a good system.

Anne Begg: It is important that work must always pay. That is why I always have been a very strong supporter of the tax credit system; it has made sure that people in work are obviously better off than those out of work. Whether a taper at 85 per cent. for housing benefit or council tax benefit is correct—perhaps it is on the sharp side and could be flattened slightly—the Government's overriding concern must be to ensure that there are no disincentives in the welfare system, and that people do not think that they are working for nothing. I do not accept the argument, "Well I'm not working for £20 a week extra," because people are in fact working for £200 or whatever it is in benefit, plus the extra. If everybody took the attitude that they were working only for any amount above what they would receive on benefit, we would not have enough people in the workplace to pay for benefit for others.
	Work in itself has value, not just because of social contact and many other reasons, but because it is easier for someone in work to get a better job. I am not as critical as many about people coming off incapacity benefit and going into entry-level jobs, because once they have on their CV the fact that they are able to sustain that job, they will be able to move up the chain of employment skills. They certainly cannot go in further up that chain without the experience that they gain from being in work.
	Some organisations have expressed concerns that the Government must address. When pathways to work is rolled out across the country it is crucial that it must not be "pathways lite"—a watered down version. Ithas been so successful because of the investmentand dedicated work of those in the DWP and in organisations brought in to provide the employment programmes.
	I will not go on about what will be in the regulations, because that has been covered by other hon. Members, although all the organisations that wrote to me were certainly keen to have sight of them, and for the matter to be addressed.
	I was going to say a great deal about the role of rehabilitation and preventive measures, but I could not possibly follow the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), who summed up everything that I had planned to say on the issue far more eloquently. Employers have a responsibility to ensure that those who are already in work do not fall out of work, to keep them in work for as long as possible and to adapt the workplace to ensure that they remain.
	I have some questions about work-related activity. Is there a role for somebody to become a perpetual volunteer? Some hon. Members have said that there must somehow be an end to work-related activity, when somebody must enter a job—but that might not be the best solution for everybody. I think of someone who has a progressive condition who would not want to be written off completely and be on the support element alone, and who would want the employment support element of benefit. Volunteering could provide enough hours to keep them in a workplace of sorts. Volunteering is not necessarily less valuable than paid work, so there might be a case for allowing someone to remain on the higher level of benefit but continually to have a volunteering role. That would overcome the problem that some face of putting their benefit in jeopardy as a result of volunteering.
	I am also interested in the Government's comments on the backdating of holding benefit. I accept that holding benefit will be at jobseeker's allowance levels for those who are going on to the employment and support allowance, because that is at the level drawn by other unemployed people—but what about people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness or have a rapidly progressive condition? If they have to wait three months to receive the higher benefit and it is not backdated, it might be too late for them. My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform is nodding, so hopefully there is an answer to that.
	Finally I want to talk about where things are still very difficult and specific help must be given—in the area of mental health. Every organisation that has written to me, and all those to which I spoke last summer when I was consulting on issues in the White Paper, mentioned stigma and discrimination, and the fact that employers need to change their attitudes. That is still regarded by many with mental health problems as the biggest barrier to work. I do not have problems with conditionality, provided that it is there for a purpose, that it is not punitive and that the support is right. We often heard complaints that that would be a problem with the new deal for the young unemployed, but it turned out not to be so. Provided that the programme in which people are engaged is of a sufficiently high standard, conditionality does not become a problem, and instead acts as an incentive to get people through the door and over the threshold so that they can see what they can do to open up life for themselves.

Michael Weir: I should like to say at the outset that the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru are not opposed in principle to the objectives of the legislation.
	In my experience, most people on disability benefits genuinely want to work, but there are many barriers to that aim and it is those rather than a wish to languish on benefits that prevent them from doing so. In so far as the legislation genuinely helps and encourages people, providing support for them to get into work and, crucially, to retain work, it will have our wholehearted support.
	One problem, however, is that we are effectively debating in a vacuum, because we do not yet have the regulations that will set out the detail of the system. Mencap makes the telling point in its briefing that the Bill refers to regulations 243 times in its 73 pages, which is more than three times a page. I appreciate that the Minister has said that the regulations will be published prior to considering the Bill in Committee and that is welcome, but I reiterate that we need to see them well before that stage so that we can consider the detail and so that those of us who are lucky enough to serve on the Committee do not have to deal with them there and then.
	The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) made some very good points. Like her, I arranged meetings with groups in my constituency and throughout Tayside to discuss the White Paper when it was first published. The meetings were useful. In some cases I was able to reassure people about some of the more wild stories. One headline in  Third Force News read "Welfare Reform Plans Outrage Disability Groups". The reason behind it was a comment made by the Secretary of State about more responsibility and increased obligations. In the early stages, there was much concern among groups representing disabled people that the reforms would impact seriously on them. As it turned out, as is often the case, once the White Paper was published and looked at, people realised that it was not as bad as had been trailed.
	The meetings were also useful because they enabled me to make a submission to the consultation. One of the principal concerns, which is reflected in various briefings that have been sent to us, is about the scope of the personal capability assessment. Every hon. Member must have had a number of constituents raising concerns about the operation of the current system and claims of inadequacy of the assessment by the medical practitioner appointed by the DWP. It is interesting but hardly surprising to note the findings of the report "Paying the Price: the real costs of illness and disability" for Citizens Advice Scotland, which noted that there was a 63 per cent. success rate among its clients who appealed against a decision. That must suggest that a significant proportion of decisions were incorrect in the first instance.
	In particular, many of those I consulted were concerned that the people assessing them did not have sufficient expertise in their condition. Many felt that they were given a cursory examination by a complete stranger who lacked relevant experience, and that is reflected in briefings. For example, Mencap said:
	"The reform of the PCA must be carried out with expertise in learning disability factored in at every stage."
	Rethink said:
	"People should have a choice as to whether examinations, assessments or interviews occur at their own homes or at examination centres."
	Macmillan Cancer Relief made the very good point that people suffering from terminal cancer cannot be expected to go through the same assessment procedure as others. They should have the choice of being assessed at home, rather than in an examination centre. The more cynical could say that all those organisations are making special pleas for their own groups, but the crucial point is that they are all making the same pertinent argument. Whatever form the PCA takes, we must ensure that whoever carries out the assessment has expertise in the particular illness or disability from which the subject of the interview suffers.
	Rethink makes an additional point that people who suffer from severe mental illness may not open letters or answer the telephone, not through ill will, but often through forgetfulness or disorganisation. That is a particular concern, as anyone who is deemed to fail to co-operate at various stages could face benefit sanctions. A reasonable person would conclude that allowances should be made for such situations, but I encountered a similar problem with a constituency case, related not to incapacity benefit but tax credits. My constituent has a bipolar mental illness, and for long periods she does not open mail or, in fact, deal with any of her affairs. She failed to fill in a form to renew her tax credits, and they were stopped. She received demands for repayment of tax credits, even though it appears that she would have been entitled to them had she filled in the form. The Department is insisting on repayment. I approached officials in the Department, but I was told that they had absolutely no discretion in the matter because the form had not been filled in.
	I appreciate that that case does not relate directly to the Bill, but it shows what can happen when regulations do not take into account the specifics of particular conditions. Clearly, such situations are much more likely to occur in relation to incapacity benefits. I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that the regulations make provision for someone with sufficient knowledge of the condition to carry out the assessment. Alternatively, as some groups have suggested, much more weight could be given to a written medical assessment from people who are treating the applicant. At present, that does not seem to enter into the equation until the inevitable appeal.
	There is genuine concern about how people on benefits would fare if they tried to obtain work. The CAB report disclosed that more than half of such people thought that they would need benefits protection while they tried work. That is a serious problem for those on benefits who would not automatically be subject to the new rules—at least, not initially—but who could volunteer for inclusion. Many fear doing so because they are concerned that, if matters did not work out for them, they could end up worse off than if they had simply remained on benefit. Serious thought needs to be given to the question of whether we could introduce a guarantee period, in which anyone who obtained a job that did not work out within the period would not be worse off. I appreciate that that would not be easy, but it would help a great deal.
	The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) made a very good point about supporting people once they are in work. In the Norwegian scheme, there is a buddy system to help people who find work to complete the initial period, and to make sure that they stay in work. That is essential to allow people with mental illnesses and learning disabilities to become used to the work environment. In those cases, we are not talking about rehabilitation; in many cases, we are talking about getting people into work for the first time. I agree that those on the new allowance should receive automatic access to other benefits, asis the case for people on jobseeker's allowance. I appreciate that some things, such as prescription charges, are a matter for the Scottish Executive, but others are a matter for the DWP, and I think that the issue needs to be considered again.
	Some organisations expressed concern about the use of private organisations to encourage people back to work. They feared that easy cases would be cherry-picked if payment is based on the number of people who returned to work, with difficult cases being omitted from the project. It is vital that that is not allowed to happen, as almost 90 per cent. of people with learning disabilities who are known to social services are unemployed. People with learning disabilities who are employed often work part-time and receive low pay. People with learning difficulties can work, and they want to do so. If the reform truly aims to help them into work, serious thought must be given to the provision of services so that we can ensure that providers encourage and support them into work. I was interested in what the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) said on the subject, and in what the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said about top-slicing. We must ensure that sufficient funds are provided for niche providers, whether or not they belong to a consortium, that provide the greater support required by that group. If we seriously wish to tackle the problem, the easy cases, if there are such things, must not be skimmed off and only those people helped back to work. Serious efforts must be made to ensure that people with lifelong disabilities are helped, too, which will entail serious discussion with employers on employment practices and, in some cases, their views on the employment of disabled people.
	The supported group—I appreciate that I am arguing for both sides of the coin—should not simply be labelled as unemployable. The National Autistic Society has called for the establishment of a clear system so that that group receives appropriate advice about work and training opportunities, as well as reassurance that their benefits will not be jeopardised. The reform must encompass everyone and, although I accept that Ministers face a difficult job in balancing all those concerns and desires, we need early sight of the regulations. That leads me on to one area where there may be serious disagreement about the Government's strategy. The Bill appears to be driven by a desire to save money but, if we genuinely wish to do so, we must achieve joined-up thinking between Government Departments and the devolved Administrations. We must tackle, too, the problem of finding jobs for people who are coming off benefit—a matter that was touched on by the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry).
	A large number of people ended up on incapacity benefit as a result of the mass unemployment of the late 1970s and 1980s, and many of them stayed on it for many years. We must not allow that to continue: when we roll out pathways to work it must be funded as fully as the pilot projects—a point that was well madeby the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South. Many organisations have expressed concern that the pilot projects were successful because they were well funded, with everything available at their beck and call. If such support is not available when the project is rolled out, we will not achieve the same success nationally. The initiative must not be viewed as a way of saving money. We may need to spend money, at least in the short term, to save money in the long term. The initiative is worth while, and it has our support, but we need to see the regulations and exactly what has been proposed.

Sammy Wilson: This legislation, at least as it stands, does not apply to Northern Ireland. As one who the chattering classes have described as coming from the celtic fringe, I hope that I do not incur the wrath of others on the Opposition Benches for taking part in this debate. I wanted to join in the general outbreak of consensus and good will that there has been on this Bill towards the end of this Session for two reasons in particular—first because it is an important part of the economic policy that will keep the United Kingdom working well, and secondly because it is an important micro-economic policy that deals with a vulnerable group of people, whom we simply cannot dismiss and say that they have no part in the economic life of our country.
	I hope and believe that the Bill will eventually apply to Northern Ireland, because much of what has been said about other parts of the United Kingdom here tonight applies even more so to Northern Ireland. It is well known the members of my party do not trot into the Lobby with the Government too often, but I congratulate them at least on the macro-economic policy in Northern Ireland, where we are now experiencing the lowest level of unemployment that I can remember in my lifetime. However, our economy still contains significant pockets of people who have faced unemployment for a long time. In parts of Northern Ireland, up to 40 per cent. of the working population is on incapacity benefit, and I do not believe that all those people cannot contribute in some way to the economic life of that part of the United Kingdom. If the Bill were to channel such people back into work, it would do them a favour, and it would do our economy good.
	As the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) has said, the system will examine people's personal capabilities. I have dealt with too many constituency cases in which GPs have treated people week after week, month after month and year after year simply by writing them a line, because they are disabled.
	On the assessment for incapacity benefit, 70 per cent. of those whose cases are reviewed in Northern Ireland have the outcome changed on appeal, which indicates that the initial assessment is not done that well. People's personal capabilities are important, and perhaps the new system will focus on the contribution that people can make.
	I have a couple of concerns that I would like the Minister to address. First, Age Concern has pointed out that even under the existing pathways programme, the people who do not get moved into work easily are over 50, but I cannot see anything in the Bill indicating that there will be a greater success rate for over-50s.
	Secondly, if we are to meet the Government's target in Northern Ireland, more than 30,000 people who are currently regarded as disabled in some way must be put into jobs, which will require a massive change, and the change will probably need to be greater in the public sector than the private sector. Given the importance of the public sector in Northern Ireland, it worries me that we are holding out the promise of a new routeto work for people, who may find themselves in endless work-related programmes, but may never get into work.
	Some time ago, I was involved in a voluntary sector project to get hard-to-place youths into work. The success rate was one thing that gave those who joined the scheme a bit of drive—85 per cent. of those who went through the scheme got into full-time employment, which injected discipline into youngsters who might otherwise have found it difficult to stay on the programme. Unless such success rates are achieved, people will quickly become fed up and think that the scheme is just another failed initiative.
	Giving employers sanctions has generated some concern, but I do not share that worry. In my experience of that youth project, the employer having sanctions can sometimes be important, because the people who are directly involved can best judge whether a sanction is appropriate and which sanction is appropriate. I am not therefore worried about the fact that employers will have the ability to impose sanctions.
	Turning quickly to housing benefit, I have two concerns. First, I am concerned about the payment going directly to the tenant, who will then pass it on to the landlord. Some Members have argued that that is good because it teaches people who receive the benefit responsibility, but many, sad to say, are unable to bear that responsibility because when they get the money they will immediately spend it on drink, drugs or whatever, or if they do not, their husband, wife or partner will. If the money goes into a bank account, sometimes the bank will take it. There is already an element of responsibility involved anyway. Most people do not get 100 per cent. of housing costs met through housing benefit, so they have to budget somewhat for housing. We need to consider whether direct payment is appropriate in all circumstances. The Minister said earlier on that there would be opportunities for some people to have money paid directly to the landlord, but that merely puts in place yet another expensive bureaucracy for assessing who should have direct payment and who should not. Either we have it or we do not.
	Secondly, I am concerned about the issue of housing benefit being withdrawn in the case of antisocial behaviour. We need to impose as many sanctions as possible on those who engage in antisocial behaviour and make people's life a misery on estates. However, I wonder how much of this part of the Bill is down to getting a headline in the papers, some of which have already zoomed in on it and said that people will lose housing benefit if they do not behave. However, the Minister has made it clear that he is already imposing a restriction. When I asked him about it earlier, he said that there is no chance of families with children being turfed out on to the street. If so, we are already ruling out a whole range of people who may cause miseryfor their neighbours. We have to ask ourselves when and how this measure will be applied if it is to be effective.
	I trust that the Bill will be introduced in parallelin Northern Ireland. That is necessary given the circumstances of those in that part of the United Kingdom who find themselves out of work and on incapacity benefit without some of the support that is required. Antisocial behaviour is a big issue on many estates, so any sanctions that can be imposed, albeit that they have been weakened by what the Minister has said, will be an important element of the armoury in fighting against that blight on society.
	I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this Second Reading debate and trust that some of the points that have been raised will be teased out more fully so that the Bill returns in an even better form.

Andrew Love: I, too, warmly welcome the Bill for all the reasons that other Members have mentioned. I am particularly concerned with part 2, which deals with housing benefit.
	We all know about the problems with the housing benefit system. It is incredibly complex: anyone who has seen the local authority manual for housing benefit will know just how complex. It is bureaucratic, as anyone who has had to endure it when trying to claim housing benefit will know, and that leads to significant delays in payment. Primarily, there are enormous shortfalls in the payment of housing benefit compared with the rents that people have to pay.
	For all those reasons, it has been a priority for the Government to reform the system. They introduced the local housing allowance pathfinders in 2003 and we are now beginning to get the results of those pilots. The pathfinders' objectives were to: promote fairness, increase choice for the tenant, have greater transparency—tenants would know in advance the amount of local housing allowance that they were to receive—and increase personal responsibility. I shall revert to the latter shortly. The primary objective was bringing an end to the interminable waits for claims because of the bureaucratic nature of the system.
	Pathfinders have achieved most of the objectives and were especially successful in reducing the shortfalls between benefit and rent—from £24 to £17 on average. That is to be warmly welcomed. However, we need to consider several matters in our scrutiny of the Bill.
	All hon. Members who commented on housing benefit reforms mentioned direct payments to private tenants. I accept the objective of trying to increase personal responsibility. It is important if we are to assist people into employment, and the results of the pathfinders are encouraging. However, there are dark clouds on the horizon for the national roll-out of the scheme. Many people mentioned landlords' resistance and expressed a view that that will increase the risk of non-payment and falling into arrears. I have some concerns that that will reduce the supply of accommodation for housing benefit tenants.
	However, my main worry is about vulnerable tenants. They include the elderly, people who are leaving supported housing or care and the statutory homeless. There is a whole group of vulnerable tenants. Although I accept that provision has been made for local authorities to pay the benefit directly to the landlord, the system does not contain adequate safeguards and we need to consider whether trained and qualified staff are required to make an assessment to ensure that those who are most exposed under a system of personal responsibility do not fall into significant arrears.
	One of the reasons for pathfinders' success is the increased provision of financial advice to tenants in the pilot areas. Genuine difficulties undoubtedly arise when people have to set up bank accounts. Unfortunately, the Post Office card account is not available because, for some reason, the Post Office and local authorities do not have any agreements and people therefore have to set up bank accounts. There are major problems, with which people need help.For example, the European money-laundering regulations mean that people have to produce original documentation. That has proved a genuine difficulty in other circumstances. I was pleased that the Minister gave the reassurance today that the enhanced money advice facilities will be available when the scheme is rolled out nationwide.
	I want to consider the local housing allowance. Under the Bill, the rent service will set the local housing allowance and decide the broad rental market areas that that amount of local housing allowance will cover. Again, the pathfinder experience has been good. I welcome that and congratulate the Government because there has been a substantial reduction—from 58 per cent. to 39 per cent.—in the shortfalls that people experienced in those broad rental market areas. However, there have been significant variations, and several hon. Members voiced genuine concerns about that. For example, in Leeds, the scheme almost halved the number of people with a gap between their rent and housing benefit, but Conwy experienced only a small reduction. We need to look more closely at that experience, to determine how we can learn from it. There are also issues relating to transparency and to the boundaries of the broad rental market areas. I take the point made earlier about the significant variation in rental levels across Greater London, and we need to ensure that we get those boundaries right if we are going to make a success of the local housing allowance.
	The shared room rate restriction will apply to childless claimants under 25 years of age. I will not go into that matter in detail, but I have raised an Adjournment debate on the subject. I welcome the extension of the shared room rate introduced by the Government, and the subsequent reduction in shortfalls experienced by young people in the pathfinder areas. However, there is still a major difference between young people, who experience an average shortfall of £35, and others, whose average shortfall was just over £16. We need to look into this matter, and I hope that Ministers will be sympathetic to a debate in Committee on the best way forward for the shared room rate.
	I should like to make a brief plea in relation to interim payments, which have presented a particular problem in the housing benefit system. It does not look as though any changes will be made to the present arrangements, and I assume that that is because it has been accepted that the delays inherent in the existing system will not arise in the new system. However, we ought not to take that on trust. We need to strengthen the interim payments structure to ensure that people will be protected if their housing benefit is not paid, rather than finding themselves in arrears and threatened with eviction.
	Finally, I want to say a brief word on the housing benefit sanction to tackle antisocial behaviour. I am sympathetic in principle to what the Government are trying to achieve. We have to crack down on antisocial behaviour and I am interested in the rehabilitation support that has been suggested. However, we must ventilate some of these arguments in Committee to ensure that that support is real. We must also consider the implications for families and, especially, young children who are evicted and who have action taken against them. I am certainly sympathetic to the idea of establishing pilots to enable us to look carefully at this issue, because that is what is needed, and I hope that we will be able to improve the system to ensure that antisocial behaviour is dealt with.
	I strongly welcome the Bill overall, and I particularly welcome the provisions for setting up the local housing allowance. The Bill will make a significant difference to people at the margins of our society, and I hope that it will not only encourage them to get back into work but ensure that they are looked after with a proper safety net while they are in the transition period.

Greg Clark: The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel)—and indeed the Secretary of State—referred to William Beveridge. I should like to refer to that other great titan of the 20th century, Sir Winston Churchill, who summed up the vision for our party's involvement in social policy with two images: the ladder and the net. That has served us well during the 20th century, but it is an outdated vision for the 21st. People get tangled up in nets, and our purpose in this age must be to propel people upwards, not to leave them languishing in a net, however humane the intention behind its provision.
	Nothing could better illustrate that problem than incapacity benefit. We know that once someone has been on IB for a year, they are likely to spend an average of eight years on it. The reasons for that are complex. People have special needs that can be difficult to deal with. When setting targets for reforming welfare provision to alleviate poverty, it is appropriate to tackle the difficult cases as well as the easier ones, and I urge those on my Front Bench as well as the Government to take that on board.
	I applaud the Government's achievements in reducing child poverty, but when we look at the construction of that target and at how progress towards it has been made, we realise that it has consisted largely of increasing the income of people just below the 60 per cent. poverty line to just above it. However, the number of people on less than 40 per cent. of median earnings—those in more severe poverty—has increased. Some 800,000 more people are now in severe poverty than 10 years ago. Many of those people are disabled. In a very good lecture to the Fabian Society, the Secretary of State pointed out that 25 per cent. of all children in poverty have at least one disabled parent. It is therefore extremely important that we direct our attention to that group. I hope that the Government's headline targets will not distract them from that purpose. Our welcome for the Bill reflects the fact that it goes some way to show that the issue is not being entirely forgotten.
	What can be done about it? The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) and I serve on the Public Accounts Committee and we recently had the pleasure of scrutinising a report from the National Audit Office that considered the Department's record on supportfor disabled people. It contained some shocking revelations. For example, as the Minister knows,2.6 million people are on incapacity benefit, but only 125,000 of them are engaged in programmes to get them back into work. That is a drop in the ocean. If we are serious about giving people with disabilities the chances that they require and about extending to them the social justice that we extend to other parts of society, it is vital that we increase the number and quality of places available.
	The NAO also found that, since April 2001, one third of all workstep suppliers have not progressed a single person into unsupported employment. As well as providing some of the sticks and carrots in the Bill, we need to consider the quality and availability of that provision. In so doing, I urge the Minister to make far greater use of the private and voluntary sectors, which have a record of innovation that commends itself. I have had some experience of the work of Tomorrow's People in my constituency and around the country. It has a fantastic record in dealing with the difficult problems that people face and helping to alleviate and, in some cases, cure them, so that people can go back into unsupported employment and have a decent chance of staying in it.
	I also commend to the Minister's attentionthe experience of Kent, where the supporting independence programme was a trailblazer for what is possible when local councils are trusted to think imaginatively about how to take welfare spending and turn it into positive opportunities for people. Over the past three years, Kent has seen a 4 per cent. reduction in welfare spending, responding to the challenge set by Ministers through public service agreement targets to take on responsibility, for example, for getting people from welfare back into work. That has been a great success. It has not only helped the chances of people with disabilities but been a positive economic factor.
	I also welcome the city strategy programme that Ministers are advancing. I hope that Kent will be selected to be part of that. Sometimes people get the wrong idea about Kent and think that the garden of England is universally affluent and without social problems, but we have great problems of social deprivation.

Greg Clark: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention, which underlines that we perhaps need to be more ambitious in rolling out such programmes. There is no point having financial penalties and interviews if programmes are not available for people who are keen, to the point of being desperate, toget into work. I hope that the pressure from thisdebate might encourage Ministers to roll out such programmes more quickly and aggressively across the country.
	I am aware that others wish to speak, so I will cut my remarks short. Let me end by saying that, as I believe was pointed out by a Labour Member, this is an historic opportunity for the Government to add to their achievements in welfare reform—which, for the most part, have been relatively disappointing from our point of view—and to take a major step forward. So far, the Government's record in returning people with disabilities to work has not been one of their highlights, but I hope that as a result of the Bill, especially if it is taken a little further in the direction that I have suggested, many hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities will benefit.

John Robertson: As a fellow Celt, the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) will appreciate that I do not give a jot about what members of his party think of my contribution. Someone from Glasgow, a city that may contain the largest number of people on benefit, will consider it important to look at exactly what the Government are trying to do. Their attempt to place 80 per cent. of the population in employment suggests a taxing target, to say the least, but an honourable one, which I hope all Members will support. We have already observed a degree of consensus tonight.
	We ought to remember that, in the 1980s, the Tories took people off the unemployment list and put them on benefits. At one stage, fewer than 60 per cent. of Glasgow's people were employed; the rest were either unemployed or, in most cases, claiming benefits. In cities like Glasgow, it has been hard work to return people to employment. It is difficult to believe that our city contains third generations who are incapacitated. I do not understand how it is possible to be on incapacity benefit without having had a job in the first place, but it happens. In cities such as ours, there is a great deal of work ahead of us.
	Reforming incapacity benefit and income support is very important to those who, we hope, will eventually be given work. Thanks to Pathways to Work, people in Glasgow have returned to employment, and not just cheap employment: a number have obtained first-ever jobs paying over £15,000 a year, so there is hope. Nevertheless, the Trades Union Congress, among others, has concerns about, in particular, employment and support allowance. As far as I know, there has as yet been no mention of ESA rates, which makes it difficult to calculate the number of people who will be better off or, in some cases, worse off. I shall reserve judgment until we see the figures.
	The Bill states that new claimants will receive an ability assessment within 13 weeks of their claims, but Citizens Advice rightly fears that that is not achievable. It is unacceptable that families on low incomes having to adapt to new or worsening health conditions should have to survive on jobseeker's allowance for more than 13 weeks through no fault of their own. Can the Minister comment on the idea of backdating entitlement if the target is not met? Backdating does not mean that such people should not be employed, but it might help them by confirming that although their health is bad, they want employment. It would help them to feel part of the system.
	As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, pathways to work has been a highly successful pilot scheme. I see the positive results in my constituency. The scheme was launched on 31 October, and was designed to help people claiming incapacity benefit to return to work. About 9,000 pathways to work interviews have been conducted, and, as hasbeen said, the average national rate of voluntary participation is 8 per cent. I am proud to say that in Glasgow the figure has reached 20 per cent.
	Before the introduction of pathways to work,1,760 claimants were in receipt of incapacity benefit or income support. Those people have now moved back into work and about 74 per cent. of them—1,300 people—are in receipt of return to work credit: £40 a week for 42 weeks, before moving into full-time incapacity benefits. My concern over pathways to work is about the lack of training of advisers, so will the Minister assure me, my colleagues and people who work in the Department that advisers will be properly trained? I have not found any reference to that in the Bill, but it should be included. Advisers should also be fully trained in mental health issues. I shall not go into further detail on that, as many hon. Members who have much more experience than me have already dealtwith it.
	The Minister should also be aware of the half-truths spread by the media. Some might say that there is nothing new there, but the media seem to imply that the Government are forcing people into work. Will the Minister assure my constituents that that is not the case and will he dispel the propaganda of the populist press?
	The role of the new deal in getting people into work is important. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), who is unfortunately not in his place, described the new deal as an expensive flop, yet 310 young people, 250 under-25s and 400 lone parents in his constituency have benefited from it.
	We have done a similarly good job with tax credits. The shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) said:
	"I do not acknowledge that the present tax credit systemhas helped in the reduction of child poverty"—[ Official Report, 12 July 2005; Vol. 436, c. 704.]
	Will the Secretary of State confirm that the tax credit system has helped bring 700,000 children out of poverty? I wonder whether the hon. Member for Tatton is going to remove the credits from the 5,500 families in his constituency who benefit from the system?
	Pension credit is very important to my constituency, which has many elderly people. Pension credit claims are worth about £47 to pensioners in my constituency. Yet the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) claimed:
	"Pensioners I meet don't want the extra fuel allowance, the free television licence, and all of the other condescending handouts from Gordon Brown: they want back more of the money that they paid in tax all their lives, in the form of a higher basic state pension."
	So much for a caring, cuddly, hugging leader. In his constituency, 3,730 pensioners receive pension credit, there are 3,300 in the shadow Chancellor's constituency and 3,210 in the constituency of the hon. Memberfor Runnymede and Weybridge. That amounts to 7,240 pensioners—the poorest pensioners—who will not be getting a hug from the Tory party, but a slap in the face. In supporting the Bill, will we see yet another flip-flop from the Tories? To vote for or not to vote for——that is the question.
	Before finishing, I want to mention my ten-minute Bill on rehabilitation leave. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider the points that I made in that Bill and seek to incorporate some of them into the excellent Bill before us now. My Bill provides a statutory right for newly disabled employees to have their employment capacity and support needs properly assessed and addressed—as far as I am concerned, that fits into the present Bill—and, where necessary, to have a period of leave to adapt or undergo rehabilitation and retraining before returning to work, which is another theme that runs through the Bill.
	Recent figures from the CBI show that 84 per cent. of businesses now offer rehabilitation schemes to help people back into work, so that must be cost-effective for them, but businesses say that they need more support from employees' GPs to allow them to offer more rehabilitation to employees before returning to work.
	In 1972, the Secretary of State for Employment in Edward Heath's Conservative Government, Robert Carr, believed that employers were too wise and astute to let apprenticeships fail. That resulted in the Conservative Government getting rid of the training incentives needed to develop apprenticeships, and the skills shortages that we have today are the result. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the people who need training—young people—and that elderly people could be used to help to train them.
	What the Government propose in the Bill is a fundamental change, like those that we have proposed already in relation to tax credits and the new deal. It has already been shown to be good for Glasgow; it will be even better in the months and years ahead, and I hope that that will be the same in the whole country.

Paul Rowen: Like many other hon. Members, I welcome the opportunity to debate some of the issues raised in the Bill. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said, we have come a long way since the initial discussions, and what we have now is very much a framework for getting people to work. I hope that, as the Bill proceeds through the House, Ministers will give us an opportunity to see more of the substance and form.
	Certainly, in Greater Manchester, the 10 district councils are already working to ensure that, when the system starts in our area, we can make it a success. However, there are concerns about whether it will be joined up across the piece. For example, I am concerned that the Learning and Skills Council is cutting funding for some low-level courses that are helping people with learning difficulties, when getting on to those courses may well be a prerequisite to getting back to work. Similarly, business support is being externalised and moved away. If we are to make ESA work, we must ensure that there is the necessary joined-up thinking.
	In view of the lack of time, I want to address my main remarks to housing benefit. I welcome some of the proposed changes to simplify the system and make it much clearer. However, like other Members, I have concerns about the way that local housing allowance will work. I hope that its primary purpose is to ensure that the supply of affordable private rented housing will increase. The hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) spoke about the problems in London. I believe that those problems exist elsewhere in areas without a plentiful supply of private rented housing. It is therefore important that the underlying rationale used by rent officers in setting the level of rent for housing allowance to be paid is made available, so that people can understand it.
	I hope that Ministers will understand that many people do not have a choice about where they live, because of family ties and so on, and that they must live near where their children go to school. Therefore, it is important that the local housing allowance reflects what they can pay. There is a huge and growinggap. Hon. Members have mentioned some of the pathfinders and the variance between what happened in Leeds and Conwy will not help those people. That issue needs to be resolved.
	Similarly, I hope that, when the system is rolled out, the support given to people to help them to manage their own affairs is the same as that available in the pathfinders—to do otherwise would be extremely cruel. People have visited my surgery to tell me about the problems that they have experienced during mental breakdowns and how they have got themselves into horrendous debt and how Government agencies and benefit providers do not accept and understand their problems. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) mentioned a very similar case. Those problems must be taken care of when the regulations are introduced.
	I also want to mention dealing with antisocial behaviour. I bow to no one in respect of saying that that is important and has to be dealt with, but I do not believe that the Government are going about it in the right way, because let us be clear: we are talking about giving another tenancy to people who have already been evicted. I would prefer the Government to propose that they be given a probationary tenancy that is tied to their attendance at certain rehabilitation courses, because that would be much more effective than the threat to remove their housing benefit. As has been made clear, such people will probably end up with considerable housing arrears and will not be too bothered by such threats. We need to give them a real threat: "You get the house if you behave yourself; if you don't, you're out." Such a policy is much firmer, and it is more likely to succeed.
	The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) raised the issue of payments in respect of mesothelioma, and I hope that the Minister will answer some of the questions that he asked. It is an important issue that several Members are concerned about and we want it to be dealt with in the Bill, as it has been in another piece of legislation that has already passed through the House. This is an important Bill, and I am grateful to have had this chance to contribute to our proceedings on it.

David Ruffley: This has been a constructive debate marked by good intentions from all parts of the House. Members of my party believe that those who can work should havethe barriers in their way removed. Getting out of dependency and leading a more fulfilling life is what many of the 2.7 million people who are on incapacity benefits desperately wish to do. That is why we believe in active labour market policies. However, we also believe that security must be guaranteed for those whose level of disability is so great that they cannot work; that is one of the hallmarks of the civilised society in which we all wish to live.
	We have also agreed in our debate about regulations. In the Bill's 76 pages, there are more than 240 references to regulations. That is part of a trend over the past nine years: some Ministers have sought to make major policy changes via statutory instruments, which are not amendable. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will agree tonight with his hon. Friends the hon. Members for Kingswood (Roger Berry) and for Burton (Mrs. Dean) that the draft regulations should be published well before the Committee stage. Will the Minister tell us tonight what the draft regulations will be and when we can expect to see them, in the interests of having a grown-up and mature debate?
	The Bill is in the form that it is in, and is being somewhat rushed through this House, because of earlier delays. Before the last election, we were promised a Green Paper sometime in the summer of 2005, but it did not see the light of day until January 2006. That probably had something to do with theNo. 10 policy unit sticking its oar in and pushing for welfare changes that were so draconian that not even the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), approved of them. An e-mail of last October from the Prime Minister to the then Secretary of State infamously demanded more means-testing for all incapacity benefit recipients, the time-limiting of incapacity benefit, naming and shaming GPs who allegedly signed off too many sick notes, and commuting a portion of the incapacity benefit amount into a non-cashable voucher with which claimants would have to buy rehabilitative care. Thankfully, none of that saw the light of day, but what we do have today is a Bill whose level of generality raises many questions, many of which have been posed in our debate.
	First, we must be clear about the Government's target of removing 1 million people from incapacity benefit by 2016. On March 6, the Secretary of State said:
	"we are starting from 2.7-2.72 million. By 2015/2016 I would like to see that figure down to 1.72 million, so it is a net figure. We are not trying to do any clever statistical sleight of hand on this."
	But in a parliamentary written answer to me on16 June, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) published figures—she should listen because she probably does not remember what she put in  Hansard—showing that if there were no changes at all, in 10 years' time there would be only 2.36 million incapacity claimants anyway.  [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says, "Is this a serious debate?" It certainly is, because the point that we are making—my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) made it earlier—is that the Government will have to assist only 640,000 people, not the 1 million whom the Secretary of State said he would help.  [Interruption.] That is a serious point, and if the Secretary of State does not think so, it is him who should grow up.
	Secondly, this Bill gives insufficient help to existing claimants, half of whom have been trapped on IB for more than five years. They risk being left out in the cold.

David Ruffley: I need to make progress because time is short; I might give way in a minute.
	The Bill is meant to deliver the Green Paper's further aim of increasing the number of older workers by1 million. Age Concern said:
	"We recommend the Department sets interim targets so it has an incentive to support people who are too old to count towards targets that are a decade or more away. We recommend the Government states its employment aspirations for older people for the short and medium term by setting a clear, stretching target for the end of the next CSR period."
	Will the Secretary of State agree to that request?
	Thirdly, many welfare stakeholders openly wonder whether the funding for the Bill is adequate. The chief executive of the Disability Alliance said that the roll-out could end up as "pathways lite". The Select Committee said:
	"There are widespread concerns that"
	the funding
	"may not be sufficient without services being watered down."
	The funding issue gets murkier when we turn to the Bill's regulatory impact assessment. There is no statement on the proposed benefit rates for the new allowance. In addition, it proposes that certain elements of the new regime be introduced only as resources allow. It states:
	"The overall cost of moving on to the new ESA will be dependent on where the benefit rate is set. In addition, it is likely there will be implementation and IT costs incurred during the transition; again these costs will vary depending on the agreed solution."
	We know that according to the Chancellor, the likely cut in the DWP baseline next year will be in the region of 5 per cent.; let us hope that he is not the road block to reform in delivering on this Bill. To clear up worries outside this place about the adequacy of funding, will the Minister undertake today to publish biannually statistics on the incapacity claimant case load and on progress toward the target reductions, and to publish estimates of the resources that will be required to achieve that target?
	Fourthly, the evidence shows that payment by results can get more people back to work more quickly—an example being the providers of employment zones. As participants progress through the programme, providers receive payments throughout that activity, and additional payments are received for achieving sustainable employment. A November 2003 DWP research report found that 28 per cent. of the employment zone participants surveyed had a job of16 hours or more per week, compared with 17 per cent. of new deal 25-plus participants.
	There are other examples, too. Yet the Bill does not introduce a serious payment by results regime, the objective of which would be to get more people off IB more quickly. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge today proposed a radically better deal for claimants. Our no win, no fee proposal would offer providers the opportunity to get existing claimants into sustained employment, but we would pay the provider only when actual benefit savings had tangibly been realised. Significantly, that model would help to get round the comprehensive spending review constraints that the Treasury is currently imposing on the Secretary of State.
	We would, of course, provide safeguards so that more modestly sized providers in the private and voluntary sector, which might be concerned about cash flow, would not be excluded from winning contracts. In particular, we understand the point made by Mencap, which said:
	"Niche providers with specialist expertise in learning disability are losing contracts with Jobcentre Plus due to the current policy of awarding contracts to large, generic providers."
	That is why we would like a fuller debate about the way in which bids in the pathways scheme roll out, and how they can be structured to ensure that small providers such as Mencap and Tomorrow's People, which my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) referred to in his excellent speech, continue to thrive. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) made similar points.
	Finally on the issue of the private and voluntary sector, we know that the roll-out from October 2007 until April 2008 will extend the pathways scheme to the remaining 60 per cent. of new customers. The departmental press release said that that would happen
	"mainly via private and voluntary sector partners."
	Will the Minister tell us what so many providers are asking? What does "mainly" mean? Does it mean that 100 per cent. of the provision will be by the private and voluntary sector, or 90 per cent., or 80 per cent? What is the figure?
	Fifthly, the sensitive operation of the new limited capability for work test in clause 8, the limited capability for work-related activity in clause 9, and the work-focused health-related assessment in clause 10, is vital to the establishment of an efficient new allowance. Under the current system, too many cases go to appeal. Concerns are already emerging about the Bill's proposal that at least two and possibly three of those new tests will be administered not only at the same time, but by the same assessor. Stakeholders have pointed out that that could lead to inaccurate decisions because a claimant will first have to demonstrate that they are sick and then, a few minutes later, demonstrate what they are capable of doing. Any rational claimant will undoubtedly grasp that the more capability he or she demonstrates, the more that could undermine a judgment about his or her disability.
	The potential for that to go wrong is great, and I was rather disappointed that the Minister talked about dummy runs, not a proper pilot. That is why the Disability Benefits Consortium has said:
	"We believe that getting the interaction between these two assessments right is vital and the dummy runs the Government have proposed are inadequate for testing out such a substantial change to the entitlement system."
	Will the Minister think again on that?
	I want to ask about housing benefit in part 2 of the Bill. My hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) had much of interest to say on that. In most of the pathfinder areas, the flat rate housing allowance has reduced the shortfall experienced by claimants between the benefit that they receive and the rent that they owe. We welcome that. However, clause 27 revises the local housing allowance model. It proposes changes to the methodology used to calculate the flat local housing allowance rates, to the room size criteria and to the cap on the amount that a claimant can retain. Will the Minister agree with Shelter, and with us, that before the Committee stage, the Department for Work and Pensions should publish its detailed modelling of the anticipated impact of those adjustments in the Bill?
	I also want to ask about the controversial provisions in clause 28 for the loss of housing benefit following eviction for antisocial behaviour. Will the Minister reflect on what Barnado's has said:
	"Our particular concern is about the effect on children...it is not a child's fault that their families are in difficulties...but the withdrawal of financial benefits from the family is likely to drive more children into deeper poverty and...work against the Government reaching its target for reducing poverty. Ultimately, of course, subsequent eviction from the home might lead to an increase in the number of children entering the care system"?
	The Bill will not succeed in helping people simply because it has broadly desirable aims. The nuts and bolts of reform must be right; the devil is in the detail. Conservative Members will thus challenge Government assumptions when we must. We will put forward modern Conservative alternatives when we can, such as proposing a system of payment by results, which would get more people off benefit more quickly. It is in the spirit of constructive criticism—and in that spirit alone—that we will give the Bill a Second Reading tonight.

Jim Murphy: I welcomed the tone and content of the speeches that we heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House. The debate was quite rightly passionate at times. I do not have enough time to respond to all the specific points raised by my hon. Friends and Opposition Members. We heard 20 speeches, including those made by my hon. Friends the Members for City of York (Hugh Bayley), for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), for Kingswood (Roger Berry), for Burton (Mrs. Dean),for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for Edmonton (Mr. Love) and for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). We also heard several sincere contributions from Opposition Members. Perhaps the most striking of those speeches was that made by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who spoke with great passion and commitment.
	We also heard from my hon. Friend—uniquely, for the purposes of this debate, given the way in which he strongly supported the proposals in the Bill—the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). I can confirm to him that given the suspension of the Assembly, the proposals in the Bill will be part of a Northern Ireland welfare reform Order in Council. The roll-out of pathways will take place in 2008, which reflects our commitment throughout the country.
	We heard 20 speeches with strong tone and content—up until the last one. In a debate about transforming people's lives, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) tried to transform the debate into one of personal insults and invective, which did him, his cause and case, and the contributions made by other Conservative Members no good.
	The purpose of the Bill is to acknowledge the fact that too many long-term sick and disabled people have been written off for too long by the welfare system. The Bill will put that right. It is worth reflecting, as hon. Members did, on the progress that has been made in recent years. Less than five years ago, the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency worked in isolation from each other. In many towns, two separate offices stood on the same high street, which drew a profound physical distinction between those who could work to support themselves and those who were implicitly deemed to be beyond the scope of the labour market. That situation demonstrated the real need for organisational change, policy change and cultural change to our focus on the labour market.
	The Bill will be underpinned by the national roll-out of pathways. In many senses, pathways is the culmination of the Jobcentre Plus approach of uniting help and support for our customers with a clear focus on work for those who can. Hon. Members spoke about their experiences of and aspirations for pathways when the national roll-out reaches their constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire talked with great passion about her assessment of the success of pathways in Derbyshire.
	I have met people throughout the country whose lives have been literally transformed—and occasionally saved—as a consequence of the support that pathways and the advisers involved in it have been able to provide to those who are most in need of support. It is worth reflecting on the testimonies of those who have been supported by pathways. I sense that too many of those people were written off by society and employers in the past. Most importantly and tragically, however, in many cases, those people had given up on themselves and what they could contribute to society.
	I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West, who talked about the wider impact of the reliance on incapacity benefit. The link between inactive benefits and child poverty has been well made. Reliance on inactive benefits not only in parts of Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, London and other great cities, but also in some of our rural communities, villages and towns, has become generational—as if it was an inherited benefit. There is a wider impact on life expectancy, which my hon. Friend has commented on before. The life expectancy in the poorest areas of Glasgow is a full 27 years shorter than in the most prosperous parts of London. Even within London, the levels of disparity between life expectancy are acute.

Jim Murphy: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but pathways has shown that folk with mental health illnesses, fluctuating mental health conditions and learning disabilities can be supported with the right level of tailored support, focused on their needs and on what they can still contribute to society and employment. That is an important distinction from what went before.
	On the specifics, pathways is the most successful initiative of its type from any Government in this country. Some 25,000 job entries are a consequence of pathways, and it is testing a new and innovative approach, involving the private and voluntary sector, to support the specific needs, conditions, aspirationsand abilities of the individual. I disagree with thehon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) that pathways will stifle innovation, and I do so for a number of important reasons.
	In respect of the way in which we are constructing contracts, our current plans will allow for 70 per cent. to be paid on the basis of outcomes, with 30 per cent. set aside to enable others to enter the market and to provide cover for overheads for smaller organisations in particular. On the way in which we shape the outcomes, it is important that we construct the contracts in such a way that the private and voluntary sector does not simply help those whom it is easiest to support into work. That is an important distinction as we extend pathways through the private and voluntary sector.
	In respect of support for those who have fluctuating mental health conditions and other fluctuating conditions, as my hon. Friends the Members for City of York and for Burton and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, it is important to reflect on the fact that the single biggest contribution to people coming on to incapacity benefit is fluctuating mental health conditions. That is a remarkable change in recent years. I can confirm that the reformed PCA process will take into account the fluctuating nature of many conditions of those on incapacity benefit. It will not be a snapshot of one experience at a point in one day. We will continue to assess individuals over a period of time. Key to that, however, is that we ensure that the staff in Jobcentre Plus and in private and voluntary sector providers have the level of skills, knowledge, empathy and understanding to ascertain the needs and experiences of the customers they support.

Jim Murphy: The Government agree. That is not our intention. We will fully invest in pathways so that it can be rolled out across the country. We will learn from the best experiences and replicate best practice, so that it becomes common practice. There is no question whatsoever of us underinvesting in what is the most successful initiative of its type in the history of active labour-market policies in this country in supporting people on inactive benefits.
	On local housing allowance, about which hon. Members on both sides of the House asked, it is our intention to make payments directly to the tenant rather than to the landlord. It is part of the continuing effort on financial exclusion and personal responsibility. Evidence from the pilot schemes is that up to 25 per cent. of those who received the payments directly opened a bank account for the first time, which is an important advance in respect of financial inclusion. The policy is also part of an agenda to ensure that housing benefit should not simply be passive, whereby we treat the customer as a passive recipient.
	I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton that there will be continuing financial advice to customers about whom he so carefully asked and to whom he is so passionately committed. I confirm to other hon. Members that responsibility for setting the local rates will lie with the Rent Service in England and Wales and with rent officers in Scotland.
	A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House asked about the housing benefit sanction. It is our view as a Government and as Labour politicians that the antisocial behaviour that devastates lives, tears communities apart and terrorises neighbours can no longer be tolerated. The measures in the Bill are an important step in the continuing effort to drive up behaviour in some of our communities. It is important that the sanction is linked as part of a package to rehabilitation. The sanction will apply after eviction. It is about preventing someone being able after eviction to claim housing benefit and to perpetuate antisocial behaviour by moving from one community to another and continuing to terrorise law-abiding neighbours.I confirm that we intend to pilot the proposal in10 English local authorities over two years.
	Hon. Members on both sides of the House asked about the availability of regulations in draft. I confirm again that it is our intention to provide the key regulations in draft for Committee, which is entirely appropriate. In line with normal procedure for such legislation, we are talking about regulations concerning limited capability for work, limited capability for work-related activity, work-focused health-related assessments, work-focused interviews, local housing allowance and the housing benefit sanction.
	One thing that has been missing from the debate has been the usual ritualistic, retrospective justification of the previous Government's approach to this important issue of public policy. Occasionally, Conservative Front Benchers have flirted with an implicit apology for their record, but it is worth reminding the House what happened in the 10 to 15 years prior to our coming to power. Incapacity benefit numbers not only doubled but trebled under the previous Government. In 1995,1 million people went on to incapacity benefit; in 1996, 1 million people went on to incapacity benefit. During that period, unemployment went over 3 million twice, and there was no pathways or equivalent. It is important to recognise the scale of the challenge that we faced.
	Our approach is that no one should be automatically written off as they were in the past. An industrial injury, a fluctuating physical or mental health condition, should no longer enable somebody to be written off as they were in the past. This Bill is about the traditional Labour demand of the right to work for all. It is also an acknowledgment that the Government can go further in fulfilling our responsibility to provide support for every individual, giving them the chance to get into work and to stay in work, and every opportunity if they leave work to return to the labour market when appropriate. I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read a Second time.

That the draft Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification)(No. 2) Order 2006, which was laid before this House on24th May, be approved.— [Mr. Watts.]
	 Question agreed to.

James Duddridge: I present a petition concerning the disposal of radioactive waste on Foulness island. The petitionhas led to a constructive dialogue between myself,the Ministry of Defence, the Atomic Weapons Establishment, the Environment Agency and Qinetiq. The petition has over 700 signatures and was completed with the support of the  Southend Echo.
	The petition states:
	The Petitioners request that the House of Commons call upon the Government to do all within its power to prevent this disposal of radioactive waste on Foulness and ensure that this does not occur at any time in the future.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Desmond Swayne: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this opportunity to hold an Adjournment debate on an issue of vital importance in the New Forest. I am indebted to Anthony Pasmore, one of the verderers of the New Forest and a monthly correspondent in the New Forest newspaper of record, the  New Milton Advertiser and  Lymington Times.
	The Minister's mandate sets out the rules by which the Forestry Commission must administer the New Forest. It establishes
	"conservation of the natural and cultural heritage as the principal objective of management".
	My purpose in asking the Minister to respond to the debate is to give him the opportunity to reaffirm that principle against the fears that it may be superseded.
	The Forestry Commission raises revenue. That is why it calls itself Forest Enterprise. It might raise revenue through commercial forestry or through commercially exploiting the leisure opportunities afforded by the New Forest. Arguably, the latter has become a more favourable target in the existing climate.
	I should like the Minister to deny categorically the rumours that are circulating that the Minister's mandate will become a dead letter, and that the primacy of conservation will be superseded by the need to provide recreation opportunities. I have two specific concerns, with which I shall illustrate the problem. The first is to do with the campsites in the New Forest. They fill some 357 acres of the forest, not including the areas around the campsites that are inevitably affected and disrupted by their existence.
	This has been a long-running sore—a battle between the Forestry Commission, which obviously wants to increase the services and the pitches available in those campsites in order to generate more revenue, and the verderers of the New Forest who represent the commoners and the rights of grazing. Currently, that battle is joined over the Roundhill and Hollands Wood campsites. But now something of a quite different order has arisen.
	In May this year the Forestry Commission and the Camping and Caravanning Club announced a new joint venture partnership, Forest Holidays. Forest Holidays will lease the campsites of the New Forest, all 357 acres, and the press statement announcing this new venture stated that it
	"opens the door to Forest Holidays developing even more camping and cabin sites on Forestry Commission land".
	It then goes on to say that the objective of the new venture
	"will be to modernise the facilities across the network of Forest Holiday sites."
	What does that all mean? It certainly meansmore pitches, with electric hook-ups. Does it mean more roads and paths? Does it mean, for example, security lighting, entertainment opportunities, shops, playgrounds, perhaps a swimming pool, perhaps even a swimmers' sub-tropical paradise, as exists at Centre Parcs, or even a "stately pleasure-dome", such as Kubla Khan decreed, in "caverns measureless to man"? Remember that we speak of the New Forest, a world heritage site, our smallest national park, where the camp sites are never far from the most sensitive parts of the forest core.
	All that stands between these potential developments being realised are the verderers of the New Forest, armed, of course, with the Minister's mandate. Will they be supported by the Minister and his mandate,or will they be bullied into submission or even circumvented by a new national park authority, which as a local authority is armed with compulsory purchase powers?
	Of course, I have deliberately exaggerated in order to point to the potential danger that exists for the future. I do that in order that we recognise that danger now so that we can guard against it. The Minister's reaffirmation of the core principle of his mandate tonight will be a powerful guard against that potential future that I have just described.
	I now come to a more pressing and imminent concern, and that is the disposal by the Forestry Commission of Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage, together with 13 magnificent acres at the heart of the New Forest. I am reassured by a letter from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), of 4 July when he assured me that no final decision has been taken on this matter. I hope to persuade the Minister to abandon this proposal entirely, but if I fail to do that, at least to reconsider the time scale in which this is to take place. The current tenants have been told that they need to leave by January 2007. Given the business that they have and the fact that they have nowhere to go and that they have been in those properties for 40 years, I suggest that a much longer time scale would be necessary.
	I find, surprisingly, that I am at odds with the verderers on this particular question. Because the verderers have backed the Forestry Commission's proposal. I honestly believe that in this respect they have made the wrong call. It was a narrow decision made on the casting vote of the official verderer. Perhaps the verderers were influenced in that decision by the campsite issue, and not wanting to open up the possibility of war on two fronts with the Forestry Commision at any one time.
	I also understand the verderers' concern that properties be made available for commoning. I would not say for one moment that the verderers were bribed in the decision that they came to, but as the Under-Secretary put it to me, rather delicately, in his letter of 4 July:
	"Therefore if the sale is approved a proportion of the funds raised would be reinvested in affordable housing for commoners."
	It is, of course, right and proper that the verderers should take that into account. I understand that the offer of one property was increased to two, and the verderers reached their decision accordingly. What the Under-Secretary did not say in that letter—perhaps the Minister will throw some light on this matter, if not tonight, then in correspondence—is the proportion of the funds generated by that sale that will be reinvested in housing for commoners.
	In its letter to me of 15 May, the Forestry Commission stated that the properties concerned do not meet the criteria set out in the Illingworth report. On Holmsley lodge, it stated:
	"the house does not make a practical family home."
	And on Shrike cottage, it stated:
	"The cottage does not make a practical family home."
	I accept that the current tenants of Shrike cottage and Holmsley lodge are not practising commoners, but if we do not sell the family silver, those properties will be available to commoners in the future. Making properties available for commoning at affordable rents is a vital part of the Forestry Commission's role.
	As to the practicality of those properties as family homes, tell that to the Landers, who have raised a family of five in Holmsley lodge, and to the Mays, who have raised a family of four in Shrike cottage. The irony is that those properties were probably not practical family homes. Shrike cottage had no kitchen, a leaking roof, rotten window frames and one open fireplace to heat the entire cottage, but that property has been transformed, as has Holmsley lodge, by the existing tenants. Perhaps that has contributed to such a gem being disposed of on the open market, rather than its being secured for the long-term interests of the New Forest.
	The Landers and the Mays have installed a vermin-proof fence around all 13 acres of magnificent landscape. They have built up a wild fowl business of national and international renown. It currently contains some 1,000 birds, many of which are endangered species, and the families are now part of the forest community. I have a letter from Burley parish council, which I shall furnish to the Minister by tomorrow's mail, that states the importance of the enterprise and of those tenants to the community. I have a petition containing the signatures of 110 local residents, which, given the sparsity of residents in that part of the forest, is something of an achievement.
	At the beginning of the 20th century, the New Forest was much more than the heathland and woodland that it now comprises. It was a great national estate, which included farms, mansions, shops and businesses all under the Crown estate. The Forestry Commission sold off many of those assets, until it was checked, partly by the Illingworth report in the mid-1980s. The question is whether that process has started again. Last year, we saw the proposals for the sale of Swan Green, and this year we have Shrike cottage and Holmsley lodge. I urge the Minister to come and see this outstanding site and to consider that once he sells this gem in the heart of the New Forest—he will sell it, because he will sign the order for the disposal of the properties—he will lose control for ever over what happens there. Before he signs—before he closes an ecologically important business and renders three elderly people homeless because, after 40 years as tenants, they have nowhere else to go—I ask him to consider his mandate and the fundamental principle, which is the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the New Forest. Over the best part of the past half century, the Mays and the Landers and their wildfowl have become part of that cultural and natural heritage. The millionaires or footballers' wives to whom these properties will be sold are unlikely to do so.

Desmond Swayne: Of course, the tenants were expecting to pay more rent but there was no suggestion that the lease would end. That is always a possibility for any tenant, but I ask the Under-Secretary who makesthe decision to consider those tenants' specific circumstances, their input and the difference that they have made to that part of the forest.

Ben Bradshaw: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is responsible for biodiversity and I am responsible for animal welfare. I am sure that we will liaise with each other to satisfy ourselves that, in the event of the tenancy ending, animal welfare is taken into account in the way in which the hon. Gentleman requests.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, one of the reasons for the sale is that Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage do not have rights of common or recent history of commoning associated with them. The view of the Forestry Commission and, indeed, the verderers, is that the properties are not suitable to be used in such a way. New housing built to modern standards, with the provision of some grazing land, would be a better way for the commission to continue to demonstrate its commitment to commoning. That would help maintain the cultural heritage of the hon. Gentleman's constituency as required by the Minister's mandate.
	The commission has already shown a strong commitment to supporting commoning by increasing the number of properties that it lets at reduced rents to commoners. That has increased from 16 in 1992 to29 today and it represents 44 per cent. of the commission's housing stock in the New Forest. It is expected that the number of commission properties let to commoners will continue to increase.
	In summary, I reiterate to the hon. Gentleman that the status of the Minister's mandate has not been devalued by the creation of the national park, and there are no plans to abandon it, although it is up for renewal in 2008. The proposed sale of Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage would not be contrary to the direction in the mandate. It would serve to help commoning, rather than undermining it. The reinvestment plan would, in my view, be to the long-term benefit of the New Forest.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.